Biosynthetic Oligoclonal Antivenom (BOA) for Snakebite and Next-Generation Treatments for Snakebite Victims

• Published in: Toxins 2018-12, Vol.10 (12), p.534
• Main Authors: Kini, R Manjunatha, Sidhu, Sachdev S, Laustsen, Andreas Hougaard
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anaphylaxis; Animal bites; Animal husbandry; Animals; Antibodies, Monoclonal - therapeutic use; Antivenins - therapeutic use; Antivenom; Concept Paper; Enzyme inhibitors; Health facilities; Horses; Humans; Immunization; Intravenous administration; Mammals; Manufacturing industry; Monoclonal antibodies; neglected tropical diseases; next-generation antivenom; Pathophysiology; Phage display; Phages; Pharmacokinetics; Polyclonal antibodies; recombinant antivenom; Recombinant Proteins - therapeutic use; small molecule inhibitors; Snake bites; Snake Bites - drug therapy; snakebite envenoming; Snakes; Toxins; Venom; Venom toxins
• ISSN: 2072-6651; 2072-6651
• DOI: 10.3390/toxins10120534

Snakebite envenoming is a neglected tropical disease that each year claims the lives of 80,000⁻140,000 victims worldwide. The only effective treatment against envenoming involves intravenous administration of antivenoms that comprise antibodies that have been isolated from the plasma of immunized animals, typically horses. The drawbacks of such conventional horse-derived antivenoms include their propensity for causing allergenic adverse reactions due to their heterologous and foreign nature, an inability to effectively neutralize toxins in distal tissue, a low content of toxin-neutralizing antibodies, and a complex manufacturing process that is dependent on husbandry and procurement of snake venoms. In recent years, an opportunity to develop a fundamentally novel type of antivenom has presented itself. By using modern antibody discovery strategies, such as phage display selection, and repurposing small molecule enzyme inhibitors, next-generation antivenoms that obviate the drawbacks of existing plasma-derived antivenoms could be developed. This article describes the conceptualization of a novel therapeutic development strategy for biosynthetic oligoclonal antivenom (BOA) for snakebites based on recombinantly expressed oligoclonal mixtures of human monoclonal antibodies, possibly combined with repurposed small molecule enzyme inhibitors.