Researchers out of a Canadian university have found that combining antiviral drugs with antibody therapy could be more effective at fighting seasonal flu – and a potential pandemic – than using either treatment on its own.
The study, from researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, showed that using a combination of antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu, a medication prescribed to people at serious risk from the flu, with antibody therapy, made the drugs “more potent” while the antibodies were “significantly” more effective at killing infected cells.
The findings were published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal Cell Reports Medicine.
“Antibody therapies were used to treat COVID-19, and in theory they could be used to treat flu as a new therapeutic approach,” Matthew Miller, a lead author of the study and director of McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research , said in a press release.
“We really need to have better strategies to protect people from flu pandemics because right now we don’t have anything.”
Using mice, the researchers found the combination of therapies improved the virus-fighting properties of the antibodies. Antibodies bind to the surface of an infected call, which triggers an immune response to kill the cell before the virus can spread, the researchers say.
They say the combination may help antiviral drugs last longer, given that viruses are less likely to become drug resistant when used with antibody therapy.
“The mechanism behind how the drug and the antibody therapies work together is very unique and surprising,” Ali Zhang, lead author of the research paper and McMaster doctoral student, said in the release.
“This approach allows us to both disable a crucial component of the virus, and also boost our own immune system to better track down and prevent the spread of the infection.”
According to the press release, Miller and his team have studied broadly neutralizing antibodies, capable of fighting a wide range of respiratory viruses, for more than 10 years.
The researchers say their findings could help protect those at high risk, such as the elderly and children, from an emerging flu pandemic.