Company puts sole focus on Ebola drug

LOUISVILLE — As Ebola continues to ravage West Africa and spreads for the first time in the United States, a Kentucky company is putting all other work aside to concentrate solely on producing the experimental medicine ZMapp.

The goal: to ramp up production of the drug and get it approved and to the people who need it more quickly.

Kentucky BioProcessing, contracted by privately held drugmaker Mapp Biopharmaceutical of San Diego to produce ZMapp, makes the compound using tobacco plants. The plants act as "photocopiers" to mass-produce proteins.

"We have essentially put all of our resources around the ZMapp compound," says David Howard, a spokesman for Reynolds American Inc., which acquired Kentucky BioProcessing in January. "It's our entire focus. ... We're trying to do what we can to address this epidemic."

Howard says the company is hiring more staff and working on the compound 24/7 at its Owensboro facility, which has 32,000 square feet of manufacturing space. Although the compound takes about three months to make, he said, limited supplies are available now, and he expects to continue producing more, which will help speed up the drug-approval process.

Working toward U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval is also the federal government's goal. In September, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to accelerate development of ZMapp under an 18-month, $24.9 million contract with Mapp, which could be extended to $42.3 million.

Gretchen Michael, spokeswoman for HHS' Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, says the government agency is also in talks with Texas-based Caliber Biotherapeutics about producing more ZMapp, along with Kentucky BioProcessing. Caliber says on its website it has the "world's largest plant-made pharmaceutical facility." Caliber officials wouldn't comment on how discussions are going.

ZMapp was untested in humans when it was used on American aid workers Nancy Writebol and Kent Brantly, who contracted Ebola and received the medication while still in Liberia, according to Samaritan's Purse, the faith-based organization for which Brantly worked.

While both recovered, doctors say it's unclear what role ZMapp played. Both patients received supportive care at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, and Samaritan's Purse said Brantly had also received a unit of blood from a 14-year-old Ebola survivor under his care.

Still, scientists agree ZMapp is promising. Researchers announced in late August that the compound had cured 100% of monkeys treated in a Canadian study. The medicine is a combination of three different antibodies, which bind to the protein of the Ebola virus.

Meanwhile, the toll continues to rise.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 8,376 cases of Ebola and 4,024 deaths had been reported as of Oct. 8 in the African countries with the widest transmission of the virus. The first person diagnosed in the United States was Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, and a second patient tested positive over the weekend — a nurse who cared for Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

Liberian refugee Moses Adonis Jr. of Louisville, whose parents, brothers and sisters still live in Liberia, says he knew Duncan, and his death has shaken the local Liberian refugee community. Adonis says he also recently lost a brother and a cousin — most likely to Ebola, although they were never officially tested. His cousin was in his 30s, he says, and his brother was only 21.

"I'm happy that something is being done, although so many people have already died," Adonis says. "It's so scary."

Ungar also reports for The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal.