Cotton Rat RSV Model Launched by Noble Life Sciences and IBT Bioservices

Noble Life Sciences in collaboration with IBT Bioservices has announced a newly optimized cotton rat model for preclinical studies of RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) therapies and vaccines.

The companies jointly developed the model of RSV infection in the cotton rat and demonstrated its use to evaluate the efficacy of test compounds in RSV challenge studies.

Cotton rats are the gold standard for preclinical development of drugs and vaccines for RSV. The cotton rat gained importance for RSV studies because the permissiveness of cotton rats to infection with human RSV surpasses that of mice by more than 100-fold and because the model replicates several characteristic features of the human disease.

Moreover, the predictive quality of the model is so high that treatments for severe disease advanced to clinical trials based on the results of efficacy and safety studies using cotton rats without the need for testing in primates.

Alain Cappeluti, President of Noble Life Sciences, noted, “The optimization of our RSV cotton rat model is the result of a collaborative effort combining the in vivo model expertise of Noble Life Sciences with the vaccine development and virology expertise of IBT Bioservices. Models of infection with other viral pathogens using the cotton rat will be developed. A model of influenza infection is under development in collaboration with IBT Bioservices”.

“We are pleased with our collaboration with Noble Life Sciences in the optimization of this model. Although current treatment options for prevention of RSV disease in high-risk infants are highly effective, the need for cost-effective vaccines or therapeutic options for RSV prevention and treatment in the large population of normal-risk infants and children is great. The cotton rat model of RSV infection will play a pivotal role in the development of such vaccines and therapeutics,” commented Dr. Javad Aman, President and CSO of IBT Bioservices.