To develop therapeutics to treat the 2019 novel coronavirus, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) will expand an existing collaboration with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Tarrytown, New York.

"Emerging infectious diseases can present serious threats to our nation's health security," said Rick Bright, Ph.D., deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response and director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) at ASPR. "Working as public-private partners like we have with Regeneron since 2014, we can move rapidly to respond to new global health threats."

BARDA and Regeneron now will leverage their partnership agreement to develop multiple monoclonal antibodies that, individually or in combination, could be used to treat this emerging coronavirus, also known as 2019-nCoV.

These monoclonal antibodies are produced by a single clone of cells or a cell line with identical antibody molecules. The antibodies bind to certain proteins of a virus, reducing the ability of the virus to infect human cells. Medicines developed for 2019-nCoV through the expanded BARDA-Regeneron partnership will leverage Regeneron's monoclonal antibody discovery platform called VelocImmune, part of the company's VelociSuite technology.