The Antibody Society

the official website of the antibody society

An international non-profit supporting antibody-related research and development.

On AIRR Podcast Episode 8 Available Now

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In the latest episode of the On AIRR – An AIRR-C Podcast Series, Dr. Ulrik Stervbo and Dr. Zhaoqing Ding sit down with Dr. Adi Barzel, an associate professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at Tel Aviv University and president of the Israeli Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. They discuss the therapeutic potential of engineered B cells as well as some of the problems with CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing.

You can listen to the episode (as well as past episodes) here or wherever you may find your podcasts. There are another three episodes scheduled for later this fall. If you share podcast-related content in social media, please remember to use the hashtag #onairr!

Tezspire (tezepelumab) approved in the European Union for severe asthma

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On September 19, 2022, the European Commission (EC) approved AstraZeneca’s Tezspire (tezepelumab) as an add-on maintenance treatment in patients 12 years and older with severe asthma who are inadequately controlled with high dose inhaled corticosteroids plus another medicinal product in the European Union.

The EC’s approval was based on results from the PATHFINDER clinical trial program, which included the placebo-controlled NAVIGATOR Phase 3 trial (NCT03347279), which evaluated the effects of tezepelumab in adults and adolescents with severe uncontrolled asthma. In this study, patients received tezepelumab (210 mg; n=529) or placebo (n=532) SC every 4 weeks for 52 weeks. Tezspire demonstrated superiority across every primary and key secondary endpoint in patients with severe asthma, compared to placebo, when added to standard therapy in this study. For the tezepelumab group, the annualized rate of asthma exacerbations was 0.93 (95% CI, 0.80 to 1.07), while the rate was 2.10 (95% CI, 1.84 to 2.39) with placebo (rate ratio, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.37 to 0.53; P<0.001). Overall, data from the study indicated that, compared to those administered placebo, patients who received tezepelumab had fewer exacerbations and better lung function, asthma control, and health-related quality of life. Full results of the NAVIGATOR trial were published in The New England Journal of Medicine in May 2021.

Tezspire has been approved in the US and other countries for the treatment of severe asthma.

Interested in more information about approved antibody therapeutics? Explore our searchable table of antibody therapeutic products for details.

Vabysmo™ (faricimab) approved in the European Union for ophthalmic disorders

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On September 15, 2022, the European Commission approved Vabysmo ™ (faricimab) for the treatment of wet, or neovascular, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and visual impairment due to diabetic macular edema (DME). Faricimab (RO6867461, RG7716) is an anti-vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) and anti-angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) bispecific antibody derived from Roche’s CrossMab technology.

The approval in the European Union was based in part on results from four Phase 3 studies in wet AMD and DME. The TENAYA (NCT03823287) and LUCERNE (NCT03823300) studies evaluated the effects of faricimab (6.0 mg administered at fixed intervals of every two, three, or four months) and aflibercept (Eylea®) (2.0 mg administered at fixed two-month intervals) in wet AMD patients. The YOSEMITE (NCT03622580) and RHINE studies (NCT03622593) compared the effects of faricimab (6.0 mg administered at personalized treatment intervals (PTI) of up to four months or 6.0 mg administered at fixed two-month intervals) to those of aflibercept (2.0 mg administered at fixed two-month intervals) in DME patients. Results of the TENAYA and LUCERNE and YOSEMITE and RHINE studies were published in The Lancet.

Interested in more information? Explore our searchable table of antibody therapeutics approved in the EU or US for details.

AIRR Community Standards v1.4 Now Available

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The AIRR Community is pleased to announce the release of v1.4 of the AIRR Standards, including v1.2 of the AIRR Data Commons API (ADC API) to query AIRR compliant data repositories. This release enables additional compatibility with single-cell and emerging technologies, supports extended data/metadata capture, and improves data standardization and integration. Major changes include updated quantification fields and conversion of several fields to ontology references to provide consistency across studies.

Several exciting experimental releases are included in this update: new Germline and Genotype schemas for documenting VDJ germline reference sequences and subject VDJ and MHC genotypes, extensions to the Cell schema for storing single-cell gene expression and receptor reactivity, and data aggregation schemas to facilitate more complex and reproducible analyses.

The ADC API specification included in this release contains new capabilities for querying AIRR v1.4 Schema objects including Clone, Cell, CellExpression, and Receptor objects.

Check out these key links:

Python Package

R Package

Release Notes

Github

Check out the On AIRR – An AIRR-C Podcast series!

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If you haven’t already done so check out the On AIRR – An AIRR-C Podcast series.

The series aims to disseminate the goals and values of the Community, with a focus on their application to diagnostics and other clinical applications. Organizers are committed to presenting conversations with a diverse group of experts, and gathering the attention of a broad audience, including students, and researchers from both industry and academia.

There are seven podcasts available so far through Google, Spotify, Apple and Amazon with another four scheduled this Fall.

If you share podcast-related content in social media, please remember to use the hashtag #onairr!