Netflix's 'Pandemic' doctor's coronavirus treatment to be evaluated by army
SARS treatment discovered by Dr. Jacob Glanville could also work for COVID-19
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A possible antibody treatment for the coronavirus will be evaluated by the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases after it was discovered by California company Distributed Bio.
Distributed Bio's Dr. Jacob Glanville announced the discovery on Wednesday.
"I'm happy to report that my team has successfully taken five antibodies that back in 2002 were determined to bind and neutralize, block and stop the SARS virus," Glanville told Checkpoint radio show. "This makes them suitable medicines that one could use once they've gone through human testing to treat the virus."
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Glanville is featured in the Netflix documentary "Pandemic," which was released in January and focuses on doctors and scientists fighting influenza.
Distributed Bio is one of many companies, including giants like Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi, racing to treat, cure or prevent coronavirus.
"The completed drug is going to go to the USAMRIID. So that's the U.S. military and they're gonna be testing it for its ability to neutralize the virus," Glanville told Fox News in March referring to the Army's medical research institute.
Human testing could begin this summer.
"At the same time, that drug was going to go to Charles River Laboratories, which is an international contract research group, which is going to test the safety of that drug," he said. "Both of those pieces of information come together so that we can produce batches, go through some red tape, and then do the first human studies that we'll do on 200 to 600 people in the summer, probably in July."