1 00:00:07,120 --> 00:00:12,080 Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day thirty seven 2 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:16,640 Speaker 1: since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Our main story, 3 00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:20,959 Speaker 1: people who have recovered from COVID nineteen may be able 4 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:23,720 Speaker 1: to help others who have the illness in a bold 5 00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:27,280 Speaker 1: new way. They can donate their blood plasma to have 6 00:00:27,360 --> 00:00:32,000 Speaker 1: it injected directly into patients. But researchers first have to 7 00:00:32,040 --> 00:00:37,520 Speaker 1: figure out exactly how to harness antibodies, those magical proteins 8 00:00:37,720 --> 00:00:42,720 Speaker 1: in the blood of recovered patients. But first, here's what 9 00:00:42,800 --> 00:00:52,320 Speaker 1: happened today. Just a few days after President Donald Trump 10 00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:56,320 Speaker 1: insisted he had absolute authority to reopen the economy, he 11 00:00:56,480 --> 00:00:59,880 Speaker 1: issued guidelines that put the onus on governors and businesses 12 00:01:00,120 --> 00:01:04,000 Speaker 1: to make the tough calls. Trump released a brief document 13 00:01:04,240 --> 00:01:08,160 Speaker 1: that suggested what state should consider as they decide whether 14 00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:12,839 Speaker 1: to relax stay at home orders or other virus containment measures, 15 00:01:12,880 --> 00:01:16,640 Speaker 1: but the difficult decisions were largely left to state houses. 16 00:01:18,440 --> 00:01:22,319 Speaker 1: The president set no deadlines, demanded no particular action, and 17 00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:27,440 Speaker 1: offered little federal assistance. Included in the guidelines is the 18 00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:31,560 Speaker 1: instruction that state should plan to independently secure protective gear 19 00:01:31,840 --> 00:01:36,800 Speaker 1: and medical equipment for their hospitals. The guidelines did not 20 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:39,840 Speaker 1: set out a plan for dramatically ramping up testing and 21 00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:44,399 Speaker 1: contact tracing, something experts say should be a prerequisite for 22 00:01:44,520 --> 00:01:50,680 Speaker 1: relaxing lockdowns. On the science front, there is promising development 23 00:01:50,720 --> 00:01:54,360 Speaker 1: in the quest to return to normal life. A coronavirus 24 00:01:54,440 --> 00:01:59,120 Speaker 1: vaccine could be in production by September. Researchers at the 25 00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:01,840 Speaker 1: University of ox Heard are testing of vaccine they hope 26 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:05,640 Speaker 1: will show results by the fall, and manufacturing is already 27 00:02:05,720 --> 00:02:11,000 Speaker 1: under way. And finally, a glimpse of the economic havoc 28 00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:15,760 Speaker 1: the coronavirus has reaked on China. The country's economy shrank 29 00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:19,800 Speaker 1: last quarter for the first time in decades, following almost 30 00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:24,680 Speaker 1: seven percent from a year ago. With the disease spread 31 00:02:24,720 --> 00:02:29,000 Speaker 1: around the world, China is counting on shaky local demand 32 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:41,800 Speaker 1: to prop up a recovery. Now to today's main story, 33 00:02:43,560 --> 00:02:45,800 Speaker 1: there's a sliver of hope for people very ill with 34 00:02:45,880 --> 00:02:50,359 Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. It's a bold new treatment that involves taking 35 00:02:50,360 --> 00:02:52,680 Speaker 1: the blood plasma of people who have recovered from the 36 00:02:52,760 --> 00:02:56,400 Speaker 1: disease and injecting it into people who are very sick. 37 00:02:57,919 --> 00:03:01,200 Speaker 1: The secret is in the antibodies. A protein that is 38 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:05,480 Speaker 1: produced when someone's immune system has fought the virus, But 39 00:03:05,960 --> 00:03:09,680 Speaker 1: using antibodies to treat the sick is more complicated than 40 00:03:09,800 --> 00:03:14,519 Speaker 1: just transferring them from one person to another. Bloomberg Senior 41 00:03:14,639 --> 00:03:18,280 Speaker 1: editor Jason Gale reports on what researchers are doing to 42 00:03:18,360 --> 00:03:21,760 Speaker 1: sift through the many antibodies out there and find the 43 00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:31,200 Speaker 1: right ones to help people recover from being infected. Dr 44 00:03:31,320 --> 00:03:35,400 Speaker 1: Erica Ulman Sapphire says her job is like military intelligence. 45 00:03:35,920 --> 00:03:39,680 Speaker 1: She's an immunologist and professor at the Lahoya Institute for Immunology, 46 00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:43,200 Speaker 1: a nonprofit research center in San Diego, and her job 47 00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:45,520 Speaker 1: is to find the weak spots in the most deadly 48 00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:49,200 Speaker 1: viruses and exploit them using antibodies. So you know, when 49 00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:51,760 Speaker 1: the military can figure out how to precisely drop a 50 00:03:51,760 --> 00:03:53,920 Speaker 1: bomb and one particular bad guy is sitting in one 51 00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:57,600 Speaker 1: particular chair, in one particular room, one particular compound without 52 00:03:57,600 --> 00:04:01,360 Speaker 1: any collateral damage because somebody had a high resolution photographs. 53 00:04:01,680 --> 00:04:03,920 Speaker 1: So that's what we do for viruses. We take those 54 00:04:03,960 --> 00:04:07,440 Speaker 1: incredibly high resolution photographs and three dimensions and figure out 55 00:04:07,960 --> 00:04:10,680 Speaker 1: how do you work, what's your weak spot, where are 56 00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:13,440 Speaker 1: you vulnerable? What happens if you put an animalty here. 57 00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:20,040 Speaker 1: Erica has spent years in this field. In fact, she 58 00:04:20,240 --> 00:04:23,040 Speaker 1: figured out a key step in how e Bowler invades cells. 59 00:04:23,640 --> 00:04:26,560 Speaker 1: The discovery opened up a way for drug therapies that 60 00:04:26,640 --> 00:04:30,159 Speaker 1: have greatly improved survival for people with a POLO with 61 00:04:30,279 --> 00:04:33,440 Speaker 1: the coronavirus. Currently, no drug is being proven to work 62 00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:37,120 Speaker 1: against it, and a vaccine maybe at least a year away. 63 00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:41,400 Speaker 1: That's why Erica says antibody infusions from survivors may work 64 00:04:41,400 --> 00:04:44,279 Speaker 1: out to be the fastest life saving option when someone 65 00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:47,920 Speaker 1: has recently survived the disease, especially of really new disease 66 00:04:47,960 --> 00:04:50,839 Speaker 1: for which there aren't any other treatments, the blood of 67 00:04:50,839 --> 00:04:54,400 Speaker 1: those survivors could be something that helps somebody else. The 68 00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:57,919 Speaker 1: survivors have those immune molecules in their blood, and the 69 00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:01,120 Speaker 1: absence of any other medicine you can give somebody, you 70 00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:04,279 Speaker 1: could offer them a survivor's blood and that gives them 71 00:05:04,400 --> 00:05:10,440 Speaker 1: that immunity immediately but temporarily, but that could help. Erica says. 72 00:05:10,440 --> 00:05:14,680 Speaker 1: Antibodies viruses by recognizing and latching onto them, and their 73 00:05:14,760 --> 00:05:17,640 Speaker 1: job is to seek that out anchor onto it never 74 00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:21,160 Speaker 1: let go. And when they do that, they can mechanically 75 00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:24,840 Speaker 1: and activate the pat so by grabbing onto it, they 76 00:05:24,839 --> 00:05:27,400 Speaker 1: do what we call they neutralize it, meaning they could 77 00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:32,080 Speaker 1: prevent the virus from attaching to yourself. The base does 78 00:05:32,120 --> 00:05:35,560 Speaker 1: other things. The base says, I am attached to something 79 00:05:35,560 --> 00:05:38,200 Speaker 1: that must be destroyed, and so it signals all of 80 00:05:38,200 --> 00:05:41,120 Speaker 1: your other immunes, cells and immune centuries to come to 81 00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:45,239 Speaker 1: the side of infection and destroy the virus or destroy 82 00:05:45,320 --> 00:05:48,479 Speaker 1: the infected cell. So it's no longer a virus factory. 83 00:05:48,560 --> 00:05:54,800 Speaker 1: And those different kinds of activities are complementary. Knowing more 84 00:05:54,839 --> 00:05:58,560 Speaker 1: about coronavirus antibodies will inform ways to make an optimal 85 00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:02,680 Speaker 1: vaccine against it, but study results using antibodies to thwart 86 00:06:02,720 --> 00:06:06,159 Speaker 1: the disease are still unclear. One such that he published 87 00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:08,880 Speaker 1: in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March 88 00:06:09,279 --> 00:06:12,719 Speaker 1: reported the results of five critically ill COVID nineteen patients 89 00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:17,040 Speaker 1: in China. These patients received blood components from five adults 90 00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:20,000 Speaker 1: who had recovered from the disease. The study didn't have 91 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:22,320 Speaker 1: a control lam, so there's nowhere to tell if the 92 00:06:22,320 --> 00:06:25,919 Speaker 1: treatment made a difference. All five patients seem to improve, 93 00:06:25,960 --> 00:06:29,600 Speaker 1: though Eric is working on a more sophisticated approach that 94 00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:32,400 Speaker 1: will avoid some potential pitfalls and using the blood from 95 00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:36,200 Speaker 1: just any survivor. The experiment in China was small and 96 00:06:36,480 --> 00:06:39,600 Speaker 1: has some problems, she says. The first one is the 97 00:06:39,680 --> 00:06:42,400 Speaker 1: risk it's blood from another human coming into your events. 98 00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:45,120 Speaker 1: The other thing is that it's limited in quantity. You 99 00:06:45,160 --> 00:06:47,560 Speaker 1: only got so much below the gift. The third thing 100 00:06:47,640 --> 00:06:50,240 Speaker 1: is that it's really quite variable. Some people make a 101 00:06:50,320 --> 00:06:52,640 Speaker 1: very strong immune response, are there is a very weak 102 00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:56,680 Speaker 1: immune response. Erica's work involves coming through the millions of 103 00:06:56,720 --> 00:06:59,400 Speaker 1: antibodies that people have made to find the very very 104 00:06:59,480 --> 00:07:02,560 Speaker 1: best to three. The objective is to figure out what 105 00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:06,320 Speaker 1: anybody treatments could best protect frontline healthcare workers and other 106 00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:09,200 Speaker 1: people at risk of infection, as well as treat COVID 107 00:07:09,240 --> 00:07:14,440 Speaker 1: maintained patients. My job is to be the clearing house 108 00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:17,680 Speaker 1: of the world's antibodies, to gather them, to give them 109 00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:20,320 Speaker 1: all code names, to make the study very fair, and 110 00:07:20,520 --> 00:07:22,600 Speaker 1: organize an effort by which we compare them side by 111 00:07:22,600 --> 00:07:26,000 Speaker 1: side to figure out what works, what's best, and why. 112 00:07:26,120 --> 00:07:28,360 Speaker 1: And my group will also be solving the molecular structures 113 00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:29,760 Speaker 1: to figure out what do they look like and how 114 00:07:29,800 --> 00:07:33,120 Speaker 1: do we put the other complementary therapy. Erica says, antibody 115 00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:37,160 Speaker 1: therapies might be applied differently depending on the patient. So 116 00:07:37,240 --> 00:07:39,240 Speaker 1: the different kinds of people that might want an antibody 117 00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:42,600 Speaker 1: therapy could be a perfectly healthy health care worker that 118 00:07:42,680 --> 00:07:46,400 Speaker 1: wants to stay that way, so a preventative, or it 119 00:07:46,440 --> 00:07:50,560 Speaker 1: could be a person who has been newly infected but 120 00:07:50,640 --> 00:07:54,040 Speaker 1: they're vulnerable and so they really need a treatment. Or 121 00:07:54,080 --> 00:07:58,440 Speaker 1: it could be somebody that's in full on serious disease. Okay, 122 00:07:58,440 --> 00:08:01,800 Speaker 1: full on serious disease. You may want to control immune activity, 123 00:08:01,880 --> 00:08:04,720 Speaker 1: but to prevent somebody from getting infected, it might want 124 00:08:04,720 --> 00:08:07,920 Speaker 1: more of that activity, and so different antibody frameworks in 125 00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:10,400 Speaker 1: different ways to engineer the antibody where you could dial 126 00:08:10,440 --> 00:08:13,200 Speaker 1: that up and turn it off. The ultimate goal would 127 00:08:13,200 --> 00:08:17,320 Speaker 1: be a treatment mixture, called that a cocktail, but probably 128 00:08:17,360 --> 00:08:20,320 Speaker 1: two different antibodies that would command the virus in different 129 00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:23,120 Speaker 1: ways and might do different things, and the goal is 130 00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:27,040 Speaker 1: to inactivate the virus two ways at once. Dozens of 131 00:08:27,120 --> 00:08:30,640 Speaker 1: research groups are racing the pandemic to collect and incubate 132 00:08:30,720 --> 00:08:34,040 Speaker 1: thousands of antibodies. Erica says they'll send their best to 133 00:08:34,080 --> 00:08:37,440 Speaker 1: her lab to evaluate in clinical trials, and the results 134 00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:40,920 Speaker 1: should be no much sooner than parallel research into experimental 135 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:44,560 Speaker 1: vaccines dose take longer to develop because scientists need to 136 00:08:44,640 --> 00:08:48,200 Speaker 1: first find a molecule that will safely and effectively trigger 137 00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:51,960 Speaker 1: the kind of infection. Finding antibodies, Erica's lab is already screening, 138 00:08:52,720 --> 00:08:55,000 Speaker 1: and the reason is faster is because an antibody is 139 00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:58,280 Speaker 1: a natural human molecule. We understand how it works. We've 140 00:08:58,280 --> 00:09:01,200 Speaker 1: made them before. When you've made them before, it's easy 141 00:09:01,240 --> 00:09:04,240 Speaker 1: to scale them up again. We understand how to evaluate them, 142 00:09:04,240 --> 00:09:07,079 Speaker 1: we understand their pharmaco kinetics, we understand how they behave. 143 00:09:07,880 --> 00:09:11,840 Speaker 1: It's faster, easier, and more straightforward to mobilize an antibody 144 00:09:11,920 --> 00:09:15,000 Speaker 1: right away than something entirely new. To make this happen 145 00:09:15,400 --> 00:09:18,600 Speaker 1: means a lot of lab work. Yeah, it's a lot 146 00:09:18,600 --> 00:09:22,680 Speaker 1: of coffee. Eric's lab was recently given almost two million 147 00:09:22,679 --> 00:09:25,640 Speaker 1: dollars from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to evaluate 148 00:09:25,679 --> 00:09:30,040 Speaker 1: Canada antibodies in the fight against COVID nineteen. Patient studies 149 00:09:30,080 --> 00:09:33,280 Speaker 1: will probably start within a few months after Eric's lab 150 00:09:33,320 --> 00:09:47,720 Speaker 1: is identified the best ones to test. And that's our 151 00:09:47,760 --> 00:09:50,560 Speaker 1: show for today. For more on the outbreak from one 152 00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:54,680 Speaker 1: hundred and twenty bureaus around the world, visit bloomberg dot com, 153 00:09:55,000 --> 00:10:00,360 Speaker 1: slash Coronavirus and one small favor. If you appreciate show, 154 00:10:00,800 --> 00:10:03,680 Speaker 1: please leave us a review and a rating on Apple 155 00:10:03,760 --> 00:10:07,520 Speaker 1: Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more 156 00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:12,160 Speaker 1: listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is 157 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:16,040 Speaker 1: hosted by Me Laura Carlson. The show was produced by 158 00:10:16,080 --> 00:10:21,800 Speaker 1: Me tophor Foreheaz, Jordan Gospoure, and Magnus Hendrickson. Today's main 159 00:10:21,880 --> 00:10:27,240 Speaker 1: story was reported by Jason Gale. Original music by Leo Sidrin. 160 00:10:27,679 --> 00:10:32,079 Speaker 1: Our editors are Francesca Lead and Rick Shine. Francesca Levi 161 00:10:32,400 --> 00:10:35,679 Speaker 1: is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.