Grifols is working to develop an effective treatment for COVID-19

Grifols treatment for COVID-19

Grifols S.A. is a Spanish multinational company which specialises in the pharmaceutical and hospital sector. In the plasma derivatives sector it is the largest company in Europe and the third largest in the world. It is also considered to be the world’s leading company in hospital supplies.

The company is currently collaborating with several laboratories in Spain and the United States, conducting clinical trials to develop a treatment against Covid-19. The trials consist of using plasma from patients who have already overcome the disease and processing it to produce anti-SARS-CoV-2 hyperimmune immunoglobulins. The next step is to test how effective the therapy with these immunoglobulins would be.

In the United States, collaboration is underway with several state agencies, such as the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). In Spain, it collaborates with certain donation centres and public hospitals. In addition, it also collaborates with some hospital centres in clinical studies working to evaluate the effectiveness and use of some drugs against Covid-19.

“The clinicians’ proposal for this treatment is based on the fact that immunoglobulins not only provide effective antibodies to people with Covid-19, but also have an immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory effect,” explains Eduardo Herrero, head of plasma treatment production at Grifols.

In 2016, Grifols set up a small factory in Clyton (North Carolina) to manufacture immunoglobulins to treat Ebola from the blood of patients who had already overcome this disease. In order to take advantage of these facilities, Grifols will use this factory for the same purpose, but this time to treat the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the United States, where the virus is advancing very rapidly.

In Spain, blood banks in Madrid, Catalonia and the Basque Country will be involved in collecting the plasma and the trial will be similar to the one in the United States.

At the same time, Grifols continues to work on developing its own method for diagnosing the virus, which will have the capacity to process 1,000 samples per day. If everything goes according to plan, this method will be available in the coming weeks.

Source: La Vanguardia

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