28 May 2020 - - US-based biotechnology company Virna Therapeutics are partnering with University of Toronto to in-license neutralising antibodies, to treat COVID-19, the company said.

The discovery was made in the laboratory of Sachdev Sidhu, PhD., a professor of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto's Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research and founder of the Toronto Recombinant Antibody Centre.

The speed and scale of the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the urgent need for better methods for developing and testing novel therapeutics. The crisis has presented severe challenges to global health but has also provided an opportunity to integrate advanced methods.

The founders of Virna Therapeutics include Dr. Sachdev Sidhu (chief scientific officer), leader of the discovery and development process, Suresh K. Jain, PhD. (president and chief executive officer), a

Boston-based serial biotech entrepreneur with a track record of success in building world-class organizations and teams, and Pier Paolo Pandolfi, MD., PhD., FRCP, a famed cancer molecular geneticist and RNA therapy expert.

Virna Therapeutics has a three-pronged strategy to target the COVID-19 virus: neutralizing antibodies that will prevent the virus from entering host cells, CRISPR/Cas13d-based and LNA-based technologies for the treatment and prevention of RNA virus infection and novel protease inhibitors that will prevent replication and release from host cells.

Founded in 1827, the University of Toronto includes the Donnelly Centre, a research institute where scientists from diverse fields make discoveries to improve health.

It houses the Toronto Recombinant Antibody Centre, which produces a variety of antibodies to support academic collaborations, industry partnerships and to help seed promising start-up companies.

U of T's Innovations and Partnership Office is responsible for the negotiation and licensing of biologics from the university and represents U of T in its commercial transactions with VIRNA.

Virna Therapeutics Inc. is a privately held biotech company specialising in multi-pronged discovery technologies.

While Virna is researching multiple approaches for treating infectious diseases, their validated synthetic antibody technology is a powerful platform enabling efficient generation of fully-human monoclonal antibodies.

The company is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and has a registered office in Montreal.