Memo Therapeutics AG’s Antibody Against SARS-CoV-2 Demonstrates Potent Therapeutic and Prophylactic Activity in Advanced COVID-19 Disease Model

• MTX-COVAB demonstrates 100% activity in preventing and treating SARS-CoV-2 infection in hamsters
• Broad cross-neutralizing activity against all major mutants
• First-in-human clinical trial initiation in Q1/2021

Schlieren, Switzerland – December 3, 2020 – Memo Therapeutics AG, an innovator in the field of antibody discovery and development, announced today that MTX-COVAB, its human-derived antibody against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has demonstrated outstanding efficacy in an animal model of the infection, both in a treatment and a prophylactic setting. MTX-COVAB was also found to have virus neutralizing potency (IC50= 40pM), which is comparable or better to that of the leading antibody therapies in development, and cross-neutralizes all clinically relevant virus mutants. MTX-COVAB is a fully human antibody isolated from clinically selected convalescent COVID-19 patients. Data have been made available on the bioRxiv.org pre-print server.

“These excellent preclinical data demonstrate that MTX-COVAB is one the most potent antibodies in development against COVID-19 to date, in both treatment and prophylactic settings, with effects consistent against all clinically relevant variants of SARS-CoV-2 published,” Dr. Christoph Esslinger, CSO and co-founder of Memo Therapeutics AG said.

In the hamster challenge model, even low MTX-COVAB (5 mg/kg preventive; 10 mg/kg therapeutic) protected against weight loss, a key indicator of disease severity. Compared to the treatment group, control animals lost a mean of more than 15% of their body weight.

“In just eight months from collecting plasma from recovered patients, Memo Therapeutics AG has been able to develop this highly potent antibody against COVID. Our GMP material will be ready in December 2020, enabling us to start clinical studies in March 2021,” said Dr. Karsten Fischer, CEO of Memo Therapeutics AG.

About Memo Therapeutics AG
Memo Therapeutics AG is an innovator in the field of antibody discovery and immune repertoire analysis. The company’s antibody discovery platform uses robust, simple and fast microfluidic single-cell molecular cloning and screening technologies to enable antibody repertoire mining and antibody discovery at unprecedented speed, efficiency and sensitivity.

The platform captures and preserves entire B-cell repertoires from any donor species and any B-cell type in recombinant form for display using mammalian cells. The antibody repertoires are subsequently screened in single-cell format using microfluidic screening technology that can assess millions of candidate antibodies directly in functional assays, resulting in recombinant clonal cell lines expressing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) with the desired functional properties.

Exploiting the power of its microfluidic single-cell molecular cloning and screening technologies, Memo Therapeutics AG engages in antibody discovery across species and indications for proprietary and partnered projects. The company’s current pipeline features programs in infectious diseases and immuno-oncology. Memo Therapeutics AG is a private company located in Bio-Technopark Zurich, Switzerland.