The experimental ZMapp treatment created by Mapp Biopharmaceutical will soon begin human clinical tries in the United States and Liberia, following efforts to boost production capacity.
The vaccine is believed to have helped patients such as Kent Brantly, an American aid worker, survive the deadly disease. And according to Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the first human clinical trials are set to begin within the next three weeks. The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority has helped Kentucky BioProcessing LLC, a unit of Reynolds American Inc., to produce enough of the drug for the trials, says BARDA Director Robin Robinson.
ZMapp is made using tobacco plants, which can be induced to grow a cocktail of three antibodies. So far, the drug has been used to treat Ebola-infected patients including Brantly, a Spanish priest who succumbed to the disease, a British nurse, and three Liberian health workers. The limited use thus far has yet to reveal however if it is actually effective or not, Fauci says.
"Because the drug was not administered within the context of a clinical trial it is not possible to determine whether ZMapp actually benefited those patients in whom it was used."
The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority has been scouring the globe in search of other biopharmaceutical companies that could make a ZMapp like drug, according to Robinson. Beginning in September, it has been working with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc and Roche Holding AG's Genentech unit. They have developed a product similar to Zmapp using Chinese hamsters' ovarian cells. This new drug will soon begin testing on non-human primates.
"They've quickly made a huge amount of progress," Robinson says.
Mapp, a San Diego based company, developed ZMapp with the help of both the Public Health of Canada and the United States government.
While not the first Ebola outbreak ever to occur, this one has been far more serious than any previous outbreak with more and more people getting sick every day and succumbing to the disease. According to the World Health Organization, this Ebola outbreak has infected 21,759 people and killed 8,668 Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea so far.
Physicians, healthcare and aid workers, and even government officials are putting a lot of hope in these upcoming trials as a way to finally fight Ebola and stop its spread, to end its reign of terror before it gets any worse or spreads even further around the world.
