Porfolio company TC BioPharm has had their T-cell therapy approved for trials in Scotland for Covid-19 that would boost patients’ immune systems before their need for intensive care.
TC BioPharm has developed a method for cultivating large numbers of T-cells from healthy donors and will give them to hospitalised coronavirus patients, who studies suggest often have low levels of T-cells. The trial has been approved this month by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and Edinburgh university.
Nik Hirani, associate medical director of outpatient services at Edinburgh
university’s Centre for Inflammation Research, who will supervise the trial at the Scottish capital’s Royal Infirmary, said the six-month trial should make clearer how Covid-19 works and its interaction with the immune system.
Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford,
this week said T-cells — which begin to lose effectiveness after the age of 65
— might offer an explanation of why young people are less likely to suffer
seriously from coronavirus.
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