On Jan. 21, 2021, XBiotech announced that its COVID-19 candidate True Humanﾙ antibody therapy may also be used for treating the COVID-19 mutant virus that recently emerged in the UK and was rapidly spreading across the US.

XBiotechﾒs candidate therapy specifically targets the so-called spike protein of the virus and potently neutralizes the virusﾒ ability to infect cells. The company analyzed its candidate COVID-19 therapy for its ability to bind the spike protein of the mutant COVID-19 virus and was found to have the same high affinity for spike protein of both the original COVID-19 and mutant COVID-19 viruses.