Lactiga Featured in the Globe and Mail

Published June 12, 2021

Can antibodies from human breast milk help in the COVID-19 fight?

CHRISTOPHER KATSAROV/(CHRISTOPHER KATSAROV/THE GLOBE

When Viraj Mane became a parent in 2012, he was struck by the packets of excess breast milk that started to pile up in his freezer. He began to wonder about the global supply of unused human milk.

Dr. Mane’s observations as a parent, combined with the knowledge he’d gained pursuing his PhD in molecular and human genetics and working in immunology, virology, and nanotechnology, led him to think about ways to repurpose excess donations to milk banks, which stockpile breast milk for use in emergency neonatal care. In 2017, he co-founded Lactiga, a Toronto-based biotech company that has since developed and patented methods of extracting antibodies from human breast milk, with the aim of developing new treatments for immunodeficient patients.

Now, like many researchers and biotech companies, Lactiga’s focus has shifted in response to the pandemic. The company is currently developing an airway treatment for COVID-19-infected patients, using donated milk sourced from mothers who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 or recovered from natural infection. This type of milk has been found by researchers to contain COVID-19 antibodies.

The final goal of Lactiga’s work is a COVID-19 treatment, not prevention, that reduces the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 in the airways. As the antibodies are absorbed through the respiratory tract, they would mitigate the severity of COVID-19 infection. The treatment would look like a liquid in a small cartridge. Using an already-available device with a mask that covers the mouth and nose, patients would inhale a mist.

Lactiga is working in collaboration with Rebecca Powell, a researcher at Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine in New York. Last year, they jointly received US$2-million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Emergency Award Fund, which includes a three-year project commitment from the NIH for the research and development of this COVID-19-specific treatment.

If ultimately approved by Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Lactiga’s treatment could be used at home or in a hospital – a key differentiator from other clinical treatments, Dr. Mane said, as offering patients opportunities to recover at home is important given global shortages of hospital equipment, beds and staffing.

The treatment is in the preclinical phase of development, but Dr. Powell said it will likely be tested on hamsters by the end of the summer. Dr. Mane expects human clinical trials to take place in 2022.

The use of antibody treatments for COVID-19 gained attention last year when former president Donald Trump was treated with Regeneron, which uses monoclonal antibodies – laboratory-made proteins to which viral variants are resistant.

Richard Bozzato, a senior health adviser at MaRS Discovery District, said that compared with monoclonal antibody treatments, Lactiga’s treatment, which relies on polyclonal antibodies, would have a “broader spectrum of potential effectiveness” in the fight against COVID variants. Polyclonal antibodies found in human milk are naturally adaptable and can target many sites on a virus, like a spike protein, even if it has mutated. They are also believed to be highly stable.

“This material can be stockpiled for months, possibly even years, and used in acute situations,” Mr. Bozzato said.