Motavizumab (proposed

INN Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway. Before the advent of motorized transportation, they also provided accomm ...

, trade name Numax) is a

humanized monoclonal antibody Humanized antibodies are antibodies from non-human species whose protein sequences have been modified to increase their similarity to antibody variants produced naturally in humans. The process of "humanization" is usually applied to monoclonal ant ...

. It is being investigated by

MedImmune MedImmune, LLC was a wholly owned subsidiary of AstraZeneca before February 14, 2019, when it was announced that the MedImmune name and branding would be discontinued in favor of AstraZeneca. MedImmune was founded in 1988 as Molecular Vaccines, ...

(today a subsidiary of

AstraZeneca AstraZeneca plc () (AZ) is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, UK. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas includi ...

) for the prevention of

respiratory syncytial virus Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), also called human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) and human orthopneumovirus, is a virus that causes infections of the respiratory tract. It is a negative-sense, single-stranded RNA virus. Its name is derive ...

infection in high-risk

infant In common terminology, a baby is the very young offspring of adult human beings, while infant (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'baby' or 'child') is a formal or specialised synonym. The terms may also be used to refer to juveniles of ...

s. , it was undergoing Phase II and III

clinical trials Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human subject research, human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel v ...

. In June 2010, the FDA Antiviral Drugs Advisory Committee declined to endorse MedImmune's request for licensure of motavizumab in a 14 to 3 decision. The members of that panel cited several reasons for the decision, and many were concerned that "we're not looking at a product that has evidence of superiority in terms of efficacy" when compared to the already available monoclonal antibody

palivizumab Palivizumab, sold under the brand name Synagis, is a monoclonal antibody produced by recombinant DNA technology used to prevent severe disease caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections. It is recommended for infants at high-risk for ...

. In December 2010, AstraZeneca in a stock market statement stated that it would be writing down $445m (£286m) after discontinuing a key development program for motavizumab. The company stated that it would no longer develop motavizumab for the prevention of

(RSV), and as a result was withdrawing its licence application to the US

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respo ...

. It added that it would continue to develop motavizumab for other treatments of RSV.

References

External links

* {{Portal bar , Medicine Drugs developed by AstraZeneca Experimental monoclonal antibodies