CSL and research partners give up on plans to develop COVID treatment

CSL has shelved plans to develop a coronavirus treatment using the plasma of recovered patients after a global trial with its research partners failed to meet its goal.

It has been exactly one year since CSL unveiled plans to work with some of its biggest rivals to collect plasma, the yellow liquid in blood, from patients who had contracted and recovered from COVID-19. It was hoped this plasma could be refined into a standardised treatment, called ‘hyperimmune globulin’, to stop the progression of the disease.

Dr Kong Yuefeng, a recovered COVID-19 patient, donates plasma in the blood centre in Wuhan. Credit: AP

CSL and its Japanese competitor Takeda led the formation of a group called the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance, which also included global firms such as Octopharm and BioPharm Plasma. The companies collected raw materials and tested the treatment on patients to work out if it could help those with serious COVID-related illness.

However, over the Easter long weekend Takeda released an update confirming that the phase 3 trial of the treatment “did not meet its endpoints to show efficacy in adults hospitalised with COVID-19”.

The results from the trial suggested the use of the product in combination with antiviral drug remdesivir was no more effective than just using remdesivir by itself.

Full analysis of the research is yet to be completed, but the companies said the disappointing results mean the one-year collaborative agreement between the biotech firms will now be axed.

Challenging week

The results come in a challenging week in the fight against the virus, with Australia’s technical advisory committee on vaccines set to meet on Wednesday to discuss the risks and benefits of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine after a case of blood clotting was reported in a vaccinated man in Melbourne.

CSL confirmed the trial results also mean it will discontinue local research for a home-grown plasma-based treatment that it was conducting alongside the global studies. Australian Red Cross Lifeblood had partnered with CSL to collect plasma from Australians who had recovered from the virus to trial a locally made product, but its progress was dependent on positive data from the global phase 3 study.

“While the results of this particular clinical trial are disappointing, we are proud that as an industry we proactively and collaboratively pursued this work, and that the program may contribute to a growing understanding of this challenging virus and strategies for patient care,” said Bill Mezzanotte, executive vice president and head of research and development and chief medical officer at CSL Behring.

“Since we embarked on this development program, and throughout the pandemic, we have learned much from our scientific research.”

The use of plasma to fight the virus has caused controversy over the past year, with former US President Donald Trump championing the use of a treatment that took plasma from recovered COVID patients and transfused this into ill patients. Top US medical experts questioned at the time whether there was enough evidence the treatment worked.

CSL and its partners said last August that they believed their plasma treatment would be more effective than the one President Trump was advocating for because it would be easier to standardise in production, have a greater potency and a longer shelf life.

Research into the treatment will now end due to the phase 3 trial results, however.

CSL still has a number of COVID-related research projects continuing, including a phase 2 study to test whether its CSL312 product can help virus patients in severe respiratory distress.

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