CoroNAb · Project

Ready-to-Use Antibody and Nanobody Candidates for Fighting Coronavirus Infections

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Imagine tiny biological "guided missiles" that can latch onto a virus and stop it from infecting your cells. This project immunized animals — mice, alpacas, and macaques — to produce libraries of these virus-blocking molecules, both traditional antibodies and their smaller cousins called nanobodies. The team then shared the best candidates as ready-to-use genetic blueprints (plasmids) through public repositories, so any lab or company worldwide can pick them up and develop them further into treatments. They also built computational tools to make these molecules even more potent and mathematical models to predict where treatments would have the biggest impact.

By the numbers

total project deliverables produced

countries in the research consortium

research partners collaborating

year project timeline for delivering neutralizing candidates

The business problem

What needed solving

When a new coronavirus emerges, there are no ready-made treatments available — vaccines take too long to develop and scale for an active outbreak. Hospitals and health systems need fast-acting therapeutic options like monoclonal antibodies that can be deployed while vaccines catch up. The challenge is that discovering, validating, and optimizing these antibody candidates from scratch takes years and costs millions.

The solution

What was built

The project produced libraries of coronavirus-neutralizing antibodies and nanobodies from immunized mice, alpacas, and macaques. Concrete outputs include shared expression plasmids deposited at AddGene, a standardized neutralization assay protocol (SOP), lead candidate monoclonal antibodies screened for neutralization, and computational workflows for improving antibody potency — totaling 21 deliverables.

Audience

Who needs this

Biopharmaceutical companies developing antiviral therapeuticsDiagnostic kit manufacturers needing virus-specific binding reagentsContract research organizations offering biologics development servicesPandemic preparedness agencies stockpiling therapeutic candidatesVeterinary pharma companies addressing animal coronaviruses

Business applications

Who can put this to work

Biopharmaceuticals

enterprise

Target: Antibody therapeutics company

If you are a biopharma company developing antiviral treatments — this project produced pre-clinical neutralizing antibody and nanobody candidates against coronaviruses, shared as open-access plasmids via AddGene. You can license or adopt these validated candidates to accelerate your own drug pipeline instead of starting discovery from scratch. The 21 deliverables include lead candidate molecules already screened for neutralization activity.

Diagnostics

mid-size

Target: Rapid diagnostic test manufacturer

If you are a diagnostics company building detection kits for respiratory viruses — this project generated well-characterized antibodies and nanobodies that bind specifically to coronavirus spike proteins. These binding molecules can serve as the core sensing element in lateral flow tests, ELISA kits, or biosensors. Nanobodies are especially attractive because they are small, stable, and cheap to produce in bacteria.

Contract Research

SME

Target: CRO specializing in biologics development

If you are a contract research organization helping clients develop protein biologics — this project created standardized neutralization assay SOPs and shared expression plasmids through AddGene. You can integrate these validated protocols and reagents into your service offering, reducing setup time for clients working on coronavirus or related respiratory virus programs.

Frequently asked

Quick answers

What would it cost to access these antibody and nanobody candidates?

The expression plasmids for confirmed binders are deposited at AddGene, a nonprofit repository, meaning material access costs are minimal (typically under €100 per plasmid). However, developing these pre-clinical candidates into commercial products would require significant further investment in clinical trials and manufacturing scale-up.

Can these nanobodies be produced at industrial scale?

Nanobodies are known for being producible in bacterial expression systems, which is far cheaper than mammalian cell culture required for traditional antibodies. The project delivered shared expression plasmids designed for standard lab production. Scaling to commercial manufacturing would require process development but the biological format is inherently scale-friendly.

What is the IP and licensing situation?

The plasmids are shared via AddGene, which typically allows academic use freely but may have restrictions on commercial use. Any company interested in commercial development should contact Karolinska Institutet directly to discuss licensing terms. The project was publicly funded under Horizon 2020, which generally encourages exploitation of results.

Are these antibodies specific to the original COVID-19 strain or do they work against variants?

Based on available project data, the work started in early 2020 targeting the original 2019-nCoV. The project ran until September 2022, so later work may have addressed emerging variants. The computational workflows developed to improve antibody potency could potentially be applied to engineer broader cross-reactivity.

How close are these to being used in patients?

These are pre-clinical candidates. The project's goal was to identify, validate, and disseminate therapeutic candidates with neutralizing activity — not to run clinical trials. A company picking these up would need to complete preclinical toxicology, GMP manufacturing, and Phase I-III clinical trials before market approval.

Could this technology be applied beyond COVID-19?

The antibody discovery platforms — alpaca nanobody libraries, hybridoma screening, and computational potency optimization — are transferable to other viral targets. The infrastructure and methods built during this project represent reusable capabilities for any future coronavirus or respiratory virus threat.

Consortium

Who built it

The CoroNAb consortium is a purely academic collaboration — 4 partners across 4 countries (Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, UK) with zero industry participants. Karolinska Institutet in Sweden leads, joined by 2 other universities and 1 research organization. The absence of any pharmaceutical or biotech industry partner means the results remain at the pre-clinical stage with no built-in pathway to commercialization. This creates a clear opportunity for a biopharma company to step in and license the validated candidates for further development. The geographic spread across strong life-science hubs (Scandinavia, Switzerland, UK) reflects high scientific quality but the lack of commercial partners signals that business translation requires external initiative.

KAROLINSKA INSTITUTETCoordinator · SE
IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINEparticipant · UK
STATENS SERUM INSTITUTparticipant · DK
EIDGENOESSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZUERICHparticipant · CH

How to reach the team

Karolinska Institutet, Sweden — reach out to the project coordinator through the institution's technology transfer office for licensing discussions.

Order a report on this consortium See KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET profile →

Next steps

Talk to the team behind this work.

SciTransfer can connect you directly with the CoroNAb research team to discuss licensing of nanobody candidates, access to expression plasmids, or collaboration on further development toward clinical application.

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