Microsoft teams up with pharma on COVID-19 plasma project

Tech giant Microsoft has developed a self-screening tool that allows people who have recovered from COVID-19 to check if they can donate plasma to help others infected with the coronavirus.

Microsoft has developed the tool – called the ‘Plasma bot’ – as part of its involvement in the CoVig-19 Plasma Alliance, a group of pharma companies and other groups trying to encourage plasma donations from recovered COVID-19 patients.

When someone is contracts a virus, their immune system produces antibodies to fight the infection. After they recover, they retain these antibodies in their blood.

The hope is that the alliance will be able to collect so-called convalescent plasma which contains these antibodies and can be used as passive immunisation for people seriously ill with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

At the same time, antibodies harvested on a large scale could be used to create an off-the-shelf therapy to treat patients. Using this approach, multiple plasma donations are pooled together and the antibodies are concentrated to consistent and reliable levels, meaning they can be delivered in lower volumes and so should take less time to administer to patients than plasma.

Earlier this month, the CoVig-19 consortium – which is led by Takeda and CSL Behring and also includes  Biotest, BPL Group, LFB and Octapharma – said they will collaborate on developing an “unbranded” hyperimmune immunoglobulin (H-Ig) therapy from plasma donations using this approach.

In a blog post, Microsoft said it is ‘convinced that the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance has a real chance to save lives, at significant scale, and possibly much sooner than other approaches currently being developed’.

The Plasma bot tool will allow anyone to see if they qualify to donate their plasma at collection centres, initially in the US only.

It takes the form of a questionnaire on the CoVig-19 website, asking people for example if they have had COVID-19 and been symptom-free for at least 28 days, or had a negative test at least 14 days ago. If eligible, users can put in their zip code to find their nearest plasma collection centre.

“The sooner recovered COVID-19 patients donate convalescent plasma, the sooner the Alliance may be able to start manufacturing a potential therapy and begin clinical trials,” said Microsoft.

“Time is of the essence; we’re now in an especially important but small window of opportunity with a critical mass of people hitting peak immunity as they recover from COVID-19.”