Infectious Disease – hCMV

4-Antibody has developed a panel of potent and highly neutralizing antibodies targeting the human Cytomegalovirus (hCMV) in a collaborative program with expert immunologists and virologists at the University of Erlangen, Germany.

The lead antibody 4Ab-028 binds one of the major functionally important envelope proteins of hCMV, the gB protein, with picomolar affinity and has been shown to effectively neutralize hCMV on all relevant target cells for hCMV, such as fibroblasts, endothelial cells, dendritic cells, and epithelial cells.  Importantly, 4Ab-028 has also been shown to neutralize all clinical isolates tested so far representing all known hCMV genotypes.

This lead antibody 4Ab-028 has currently entered initial pre-cGMP production evaluation and will enter into IND-enabling preclinical and clinical studies in 2011.