CSL Behring Fights Covid-19 with CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance

From the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance

Experts from the world’s leading plasma companies have come together to create a new alliance aimed at treating the new coronavirus. Partners include CSL Behring, the third largest biotech company globally, currently underway with a 1.8 million SF expansion of its Kankakee, Illinois, production site.

The CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance is an initiative to accelerate the development of a potential treatment for Covid-19. The first phase of the Alliance is collecting plasma at licensed plasma collection centers across the U.S. from healthy individuals who have recovered from Covid-19. Known as convalescent plasma, the plasma of recovered Covid-19 patients contains critical antibodies that could be used to make an experimental treatment. The “I” and “g” in CoVIg-19 stand for immune globulin, which the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance will use to concentrate the antibodies into an investigational medicine.

In addition to CSL Behring, CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance includes the leading-edge expertise of Takeda with Biotest, BPL, LFB and Octapharma. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is serving as an advisory partner. Microsoft is providing technology including the Alliance website and the Plasma Bot for donor recruitment. Experts from the Alliance are collaborating across key aspects such as plasma collection, clinical trial development and product manufacturing.

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