Benzinga | Jan 5, 2022 08:22AM EST

Revelar Biotherapeutics, Twist Biosciences Announce RBT-0813 Neutralizes Omicron, Delta Variants

Revelar Biotherapeutics, Inc. and Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST) today announced that RBT-0813 binds to and neutralizes the Omicron and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 in live virus studies. RBT-0813 is an innovative bispecific antibody discovered by Twist Biopharma and licensed to Revelar Biotherapeutics that targets epitopes on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Revelar continues to advance preclinical development of RBT-0813 to submit an Investigational New Drug application (IND) in the first half of 2022 to begin human clinical trials shortly thereafter.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220105005422/en/

This new in vitro binding and neutralization data has been published on BioRxiv with a peer-reviewed publication of the data planned for early 2022. Binding and kinetic data were generated through Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) and independently confirmed by flow cytometry. The live virus plaque-reduction data were generated independently at the Yale School of Medicine in the laboratory of Dr. Akiko Iwasaki using live SARS-CoV-2 virus from ancestral, as well as the Omicron (B.1.1.529/BA.1) and Delta (B.1.617.2) variants of concern (VOC) isolated from patient nasopharyngeal specimens.

"We conducted studies demonstrating that RBT-0813 neutralized the Omicron and Delta variants at the concentrations tested," commented Akiko Iwasaki, Ph.D., Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

"With this data, we have now confirmed that RBT-0813 binds to and neutralizes both the Delta and Omicron variants of concern in pre-clinical laboratory testing," said Glenn Marina, CEO of Revelar Biotherapeutics. "We are working diligently to complete preclinical and CMC development to support an IND and the initiation of clinical studies in humans. In parallel, we are in discussions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and expect to submit our IND in 1H2022."

Emily M. Leproust, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Twist said, "We are encouraged by these positive results, building on data from peer-reviewed publications in Science and a recent publication in mAbs, that demonstrated Twist Biopharma's ability to discover the individual antibodies used to build the bispecific RBT-0813. These new results indicate that RBT-0813 could potentially offer treatment for patients infected with the most prevalent strains of COVID-19 and further demonstrates Twist Biopharma's ability to leverage its unique discovery platform and antibody engineering capabilities to discover innovative therapeutics to address some of the most difficult to treat diseases."