Variant-Resistant Antibody Recognition from a Global Consortium

Coronavirus Immunotherapeutic Consortium (CoVIC) is an international effort to conduct side-by-side, apples-to-apples comparisons of leading therapeutic antibody candidates against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein contributed by a range of large and small companies and academic labs on multiple continents. All antibodies contributed to the CoVIC are first sent to the La Jolla Institute Immunology (LJI) where they are blinded through the assignment of code names. The coded antibodies are sent to seven different partner reference labs for analyses of different antibody activities including in vivo protection in mouse and hamster models of infection, affinity for spike protein, high resolution epitope binning, ability to block ACE-2 binding, neutralization of pseudovirus and authentic virus infection in cell culture, risk of mutagenic escape, and Fc-mediated immune effector function.  All data generated by the reference labs will be deposited in a publicly available database that will have tools for analysis of relationships among the different antibody features. The CoVIC represents a unique opportunity to gather together antibodies that originated from a variety of sources, including COVID-19 survivors and in silico design, to compile a body of information that can inform early and next-generation antibody therapies having high potency and resistance to viral mutagenic escape.