Antibody treatments could be coming

A lot of the focus on quelling the coronavirus pandemic has been around a vaccine, and rightly so.

But another option may come sooner. There is a major push in the United States to develop antibody therapies to treat coronavirus. There's so much of a push that some scientists think these treatments may be available this year, even before a vaccine.

Antibodies are proteins the body makes to fight infection.

During the 1918 flu pandemic, doctors proved convalescent plasma -- antibody-filled blood plasma from patients who recovered from the disease -- could fight flu. Convalescent plasma has been used to treat severe flu, MERS and SARS and now some US doctors are starting to see some success treating Covid-19, too.

Currently there are at least 102 Covid-19 antibody treatments in various stages of development, according to David Thomas, vice president of Industry Research at BIO, the trade association representing the biotechnology industry. Thomas said there are so many treatments under development, it's hard to keep up.

"I never looked at it to grow this big, this fast, and I've worked on all different therapeutic areas from Alzheimer's to cancer, and to see a pipeline of this size and this breadth is amazing," Thomas said.

Thomas said some therapies are designed to treat the secondary effects of Covid-19 such as inflammation. Others are being designed to kill the coronavirus itself.

Compared to other diseases, the research and development of Covid-19 treatments are moving at "light speed," Thomas said.