Pharmaceutical giant Amgen aims to develop a new drug to treat and prevent COVID-19, using insights from Seattle-based Adaptive Biotechnologies’ system for sequencing the human immune system (Adaptive Biotechnologies Photo)

Despite a potential vaccine, the novel coronavirus could return on a seasonal basis, much like the flu, according to Seattle-based company Adaptive Biotechnologies.

That’s one of the reasons Adaptive is teaming up with pharmaceutical giant Amgen, which plans to use Adaptive’s proprietary technology platform to develop therapies to treat the virus.

Adaptive’s CEO Chad Robins says it’s the next big thing in the field of immune sequencing. They will screen blood samples of COVID-19 survivors, then identify which naturally occurring antibodies in the immune system can be used to neutralize the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes the disease.

In an expanded partnership announced Thursday, Adaptive and Amgen are hoping their targeted antibody approach can help treat and prevent COVID-19, and potentially prevent the disease among those with a greater risk of exposure, including health care workers.

“We kept developing the technology, and we were kind of poised and ready,” Robins said. “Several weeks ago we recognized the coronavirus was truly going to be a global problem.”

Robins and Amgen CEO and Chairman Robert Bradway first thought of partnering about five years ago, and looked at similar strategies of neutralizing antibodies for Ebola. The conversation was put on hold after Ebola didn’t become the global pandemic some scientists predicted.

But the novel coronavirus is proving different. Adaptive, which specializes in immune-driven medicine, believes that as the virus spreads, it has the potential to evolve into multiple different strains, infecting even those who were previously exposed.

That is “certainly a viable possibility,” said Harlan Robins, chief scientific officer and co-founder of Adaptive, while cautioning via email that it’s still too early to tell if it will happen.

There are likely many strains of the coronavirus in circulation, Harlan Robins added. Viruses are constantly mutating, especially RNA viruses like the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. Its behavior changes as it mutates, making it hard to tell which strains are multiplying or dying. Fortunately, if COVID-19 evolves into various infection strains, reinfection will produce far fewer deaths, he said.

Adaptive Co-Founder and CTO Harlan Robins, left, and Co-founder and CEO Chad Robins, right. (Adaptive Biotechnologies Photos)

Harlan Robins said he believes that COVID-19 will stick around for quite some time. He said that as more people catch the virus, which has already surpassed one million cases globally, it will be virtually impossible for many others not to get infected. He also points out that even after a vaccine is developed, it will take many years for populations around the world to receive it.

Adaptive has already begun gathering genetic information from patients, and will start its own clinical study to collect blood samples in a matter of weeks. Around 30 to 40 of Adaptive’s researchers are leading the effort.

In announcing the plan, Adaptive and Amgen said their goal is “to accelerate the development of a potential antibody against COVID-19 as fast as possible for patients in need.”

As of now, Adaptive and Amgen are not disclosing how much money they are investing in the project, but Chad Robins said “it’s a significant amount of capital.” They also did not give a specific timeline, but he said they hope to beat the vaccine timeline of 12 to 18 months.

“I think the challenge scientifically is finding the kind of antibodies that are truly neutralizing antibodies,” Chad Robins said in an interview with GeekWire on Thursday. “Frankly, this is a new endeavor for us… but we’re optimistic.”

Adaptive’s partnership with Amgen is an extension of the company’s work with Microsoft, which will study the immune sequencing findings using its large-scale machine learning capabilities and Azure cloud platform.

The partnership between Adaptive and Amgen is one of many efforts by scientists and major pharmaceutical companies to develop therapies and vaccines to combat COVID-19. They include giants like Gilead Sciences, Johnson & Johnson, and GlaxoSmithKline, along with smaller biotech companies and research institutions.

Brothers Chad Robins, a Cornell grad and Wharton School MBA, and Harlan Robins, longtime head of the Computational Biology Program at Fred Hutch, began building their proprietary technology platform 10 years ago, but have since adapted it to meet COVID-19 needs.

Adaptive was founded in 2009, and has a major partnership with Genentech in addition to its work with Amgen and Microsoft. The company went public last year and employed more than 450 people as of the end of 2019.

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