The Universal Antivenom That Could Combat the World's Deadliest Snakebites
Synthetic cocktails of antibodies could provide safer, more affordable alternatives to traditional antivenoms.
Snakebites are a neglected public health issue in many tropical and subtropical countries that, without treatment, can lead to amputations, permanent disabilities, and death. While antivenoms exist, they are produced using century-old methods that rely on harvesting antibodies from animals that have been injected with venom. These antivenoms often only protect against specific snake venoms and can produce adverse side effects in patients.
Research efforts are ongoing to develop safer, broad-spectrum antivenoms that can be manufactured at scale and at lower cost. During the PEGS Europe 2025 conference, Technology Networks sat down with Dr. Andreas Laustsen-Kiel, professor and head of section for biologics engineering at the Technical University of Denmark, to explore the challenges with the current standard of care for venomous snakebites. Laustsen-Kiel also discussed a new recombinant antivenom that he and his team developed, capable of protecting against Africa’s deadliest snakes.
The problem with traditional antivenoms
Unlike many other disease areas that have benefited from continued innovation, snakebite treatments haven’t changed much in the last century. Traditional antivenoms utilize antibodies isolated from immunized animals such as horses, which Laustsen-Kiel states is “arguably closer to a blood transfusion from a horse than a drug.” Utilizing animal antibodies in antivenoms made for humans can produce serious side effects, and these antivenoms are only effective for specific species of snake.
Each of the over 600 venomous snake species produces a unique mix of toxins, with no single antivenom able to combat them all. “It’s a fragmented disease with a fragmented market, hindered by an assortment of different regulations that you need to go through if you want a therapy to reach different geographies,” explained Laustsen-Kiel.
“Producing traditional antivenoms is expensive, and it's not a process that scales very well. In addition, the process doesn’t just produce the neutralizing antibodies of interest, but all the antibodies typically found in a horse. Typically, only 10-30% of the antibodies produced are relevant,” Laustsen-Kiel added.
As a result of these challenges, many manufacturers have ceased production of antivenoms, and prices have increased dramatically, making treatment unaffordable for many of the people who need it most.
Most victims of snakebites live in rural areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America. These areas typically suffer from poor geographical access and inadequate health services, with a lack of available and accessible antivenoms acting as a leading cause of death from snakebites.
“Snakebites don’t affect a large part of the global wealthy population, and as a result, there has been limited financial incentive to investigate alternative antivenoms,” Laustsen-Kiel said.
To build awareness of the challenges posed by snakebites, the World Health Organization established a Snakebite Envenoming Working Group in 2017, tasked with informing a strategic roadmap for reducing snakebite-related deaths and disabilities. In addition, scientists have made recent strides towards antivenoms they believe could be safer to administer, cheaper to produce and more effective.
Nanobody cocktail neutralizes venom from Africa’s deadliest snakes
While a single universal antivenom for all snakebites is yet to be developed, progress has been made towards more broadly active antivenoms.
Laustsen-Kiel and colleagues recently published results from preclinical studies of a recombinant antivenom that neutralized seven key toxin subfamilies found across African elapid snakes, including cobras and mambas.
To make the alternative antivenom, Laustsen-Kiel and colleagues injected mixtures of venoms from 18 African snakes into llamas and alpacas. The team then took the DNA sequences from the nanobodies produced by the animals in response to the toxins and added them to Escherichia coli bacterial cells to mass-produce them in vitro.
What are nanobodies?
A nanobody is a small, stable antibody fragment derived from animals such as camels and llamas, which comprises a single monomeric variable antibody domain. Nanobodies can be separated from the base of the antibody molecule to reduce the possibility of allergic reactions in humans while still maintaining the ability to bind to the target molecule.
Using phage display screening techniques, the researchers identified the nanobodies that most effectively inactivated the toxins from the 18 snake species. This ultimately led to the development of an 8-nanobody cocktail that, when injected with the venom of the 18 snakes, provided a high degree of protection against death and severe tissue damage caused by 17 of the 18 snakes.
In separate experiments, when mice were injected with the cocktail 5 minutes after exposure to the venom, the nanobody formula protected them from 8 of 11 snake species tested.
“Our recombinant antivenom outperformed the commercial antivenom that we tested it against [Inoserp PAN-AFRICA]. It neutralized lethality more and worked better against local tissue damage, specifically dermal necrosis,” explained Laustsen-Kiel.
“While we didn't do a head-to-head comparison of safety, there's good reason to believe that it would be a safer product. You can see that it has more broadly neutralizing effects, and it works better on local tissue damage. It's also known from other therapeutic areas that nanobodies can be produced in very high yields and with high productivity and large scale. We can estimate that the manufacturing cost is likely lower for something like our antivenom,” Laustsen-Kiel added.
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This research demonstrates the potential of laboratory-synthesized recombinant antivenoms to replace complex animal products and could lead to safer, more consistent, and scalable therapies.
“The immediate next step is testing the antivenom in a large animal,” stated Laustsen-Kiel. “Once we have a better idea of the pharmacokinetics, we can start designing the manufacturing process. In parallel, we need to scope out how we will conduct the clinical trials, what the exact target product profile will be, and what species we want to cover.”
The nanobody cocktail is not the only experimental therapy that’s offering new hope to the hundreds of thousands of people affected by snakebite each year. An alternative solution may be in the blood of Tim Friede, a man who voluntarily injected himself 856 times with snake venom.
A group of researchers combined and tested broadly neutralizing antibodies identified in Friede’s blood with the known inhibitor varespladib. The 3-component cocktail protected mice from the venom of 13 lethal snakes and provided partial protection against 6 more.
Given that these antibodies are derived from a human, it's believed they should trigger fewer adverse reactions than sometimes observed with traditional horse serum. Being recombinant proteins made in controlled systems, manufacturing would also be simplified.
As with the antivenom developed by Laustsen-Kiel and colleagues, the doses, venom amounts, and immune response still need to be tested in humans before the cocktail can be used in the field.
Is an accessible antivenom on the horizon?
By utilizing modern biotechnology, these therapies highlight how the future of snakebite treatment can be safer, more effective, and more equitable. However, combating snakebite mortality is not just an issue of science but one of healthcare and policy.
“It’s going to continue being difficult to get antivenoms deployed. Part of the solution is to make a better product and make it cheaper. However, policy and priorities also need to change in different geographies. Some places, for example, Australia, have a high priority on having antivenoms in their region, and they have a well-functioning delivery system for antivenoms. In other places, it's the entire healthcare system that needs improvement. New antivenoms are part of the solution, but they're certainly not the entire answer,” concluded Laustsen-Kiel.
