Chilean scientists sell marketing rights of alpaca-based antibody to German company

Saturday, June 19th 2021 - 08:05 UTC

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Chilean scientists have developed an antibody which they claim mayneutralize Sars-Cov-2.

The German company NanoTag Biotechnologies has purchased from The Austral University of Chile (AUCh) the marketing license for the W25 antibody, it was announced Friday in Santiago.

The development by Chilean scientists based on the Buddha alpaca which allows neutralizing the transmission of the Sars-CoV2 virus has through this transaction become available to the scientific community around the world.

NanoTag Biotechnologies is now authorized to distribute and trade the W25 antibody against SARS-CoV2 internationally. The has proven to be one of the ones with the highest affinity with the coronavirus, according to evidence from researchers both in Chile and abroad.

Biochemist Alejandro Rojas told the Italian news agency ANSA that this agreement “contributes, validates and grants resources to our research.”

He explained that what the W25 does is “remove the antibody from the alpaca's immune system, we put it inside the bacteria and what we give is the license so that they can reproduce and study where the virus is, and where it lodges.”

Rojas also said that as a result of the second wave hitting Chile, “there is a great syndrome of mental illness, with an antibody that recognizes many variants of the virus that allows research in several samples.”

Asked if the UACh team of researchers continues with the development of the nasal inhaler, which was announced when the antibody was discovered in camelids, he said that ”it is being tested with experimental animals in Brazil. There is also an injectable antibody that was developed in Australia and is being tested in Pennsylvania (US), he explained.

“We produce the antibodies in Chile and we test them in the United States and Brazil,” he added.

Rojas also pointed out that they have been working with many countries for quite some time now. For example, in Denmark, a diagnosis had been made for Parkinson's disease, and now the antibodies are being given a little radioactivity to see their reach. With Korea, “we are members of a coalition against infectious diseases, and they provide us with planning.”

Rojas also recalled the announcement by President Sebastián Piñera on June 1, to contribute 2 billion dollars for research, “and we together with the House of Deputies have submitted our resumes and we hope to touch something that allows us to have a therapy against SARS-CoV2”.

“This has been epic and as a team, we are going to appeal in all instances,” completed the researcher from the Austral University.

NanoTag Biotechnologies is a German company located in the city of Göttingen dedicated to the sale of reagents and supplies. It was founded in July 2015 by scientists with a strong background in biochemistry and super-resolution quantitative imaging, with a vision to produce high-quality, fully validated tools for life sciences, biotechnology, and biomedical research.