COVID-19 and the revival of passive immunization: Antibody therapy for inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 and preventing host cell infection: IUPHAR review: 31.

Levi-Schaffer, Francesca; de Marco, Ario

The COVID-19 pandemic urged both scientific community and health care companies to undertake an unprecedented effort with the aim of understanding the molecular mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 infection and developing effective therapeutic solutions. The peculiar immune response triggered by such virus, that seems to last only few months, induced to look for alternatives such as passive immunization in addition to conventional vaccinations. Convalescent sera, monoclonal antibodies selected among the most potent neutralizing binders induced by the virus infection, recombinant human single-domain antibodies and binders of variable scaffold and different origin have been tested alone or in combination exploiting mono and multivalent/multispecific formats. In this review we analyze the state of the advancement of the research in this field and present a summary of the ongoing projects finalized to identify suitable molecules for therapies based on passive immunization.