Oncimmune and Verily Pair Up to Conduct Autoantibody Profiling on Long COVID-19 Patients

Oncimmune has inked a contract with Alphabet subsidiary Verily Life Sciences to conduct autoantibody profiling on patients who have developed long COVID-19, defined as a symptomatic case of COVID-19 that lasts for more than four weeks.

Autoantibodies are proteins produced by the immune system that target the patient’s own body and can cause autoimmune diseases.

Under the terms of the contract, Oncimmune will use its infectious disease panel of biomarkers to evaluate whether autoantibodies that are present during COVID-19 infection are associated with the development of long-term disease.

If the initial discovery phase proves successful, both Oncimmune and Verily have retained rights to commercialize the resulting intellectual property, including the filing of patent applications for the development of a companion diagnostic.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.