Qiagen and TScan collaborate to develop an immune response test for COVID-19
Qiagen has started operating with a biotech start-up concentrated on cell therapies to establish a COVID-19 diagnostic test with the ability to broadly profile an individuals’ immune reaction to the disease.
TScan Therapeutics was established in July 2019 to discover new targets for T-cell therapies in solid tumors and blood cancer. It began with $48 million and later inked a partnership with Novartis for research into kidney cancer.
Currently, the firm is turning its genome-based, high-throughput exploration system for analyzing T-cell receptors toward the COVID-19 as well as how those immune cells respond and have signed a licensing agreement with Qiagen.
The Dutch test manufacturer will have the alternative to choose the rights to the discovered T-cell targets for the later development of in vitro lab diagnostics, targeted at detecting and examining an individuals’ prior exposure to COVID-19. Details on financials were not revealed.
Gavin MacBeath, TScan’s chief scientific officer, stated that the present examinations for previous exposure to COVID-19 count on detecting antibodies, which often tend to reduce within a few months of being infected with the virus. They believe that detecting antiviral T cells based upon our discoveries will give a more reputable way to determine exposure to coronavirus over a much longer duration following infection.
MacBeath stated that if the presence of antiviral T cells can be connected to protection from future infection, a test similar to this might eventually offer useful data on this pandemic and exactly how to safely get back to regular life.
The firms stated that the priorly identified T cells in patients recuperating from SARS-CoV-2 infection have revealed that they do not cross-react to other seasonal coronaviruses, like the one that causes the common cold.
Meantime, TScan declared a deal with Poseida Therapeutics in October to develop allogeneic T-cell receptor treatments as a possible therapy against SARS-CoV-2, utilizing immune cells engineered to be virus-specific.
Qiagen and TScan collaborates to develop immune response test for COVID-19
