We at Yaso Therapeutics are developing a vaginal gel, called Yaso-GEL, that uses a single proprietary drug to prevent pregnancy as well as genital herpes, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. The gel is mucoadhesive, non-irritating, relatively low-cost, and stable. Yaso-GEL aims to be an MPT that can fill the need for non-hormonal contraceptives and protect women from sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Monoclonal antibodies are engineered proteins derived from a single parent cell and have been used in a diverse range of therapeutic applications due to their versatility and specificity. At Mapp Biopharmaceutical, Inc., we believe monoclonal antibodies are promising candidates for multipurpose prevention technologies (MPTs) when formulated as topical (e.g., films and rings) or injectable products. Systemic antibodies may have multiple effector functions – like complement binding (CDC) and binding to monocytes (ADCC) – while mucosal mechanisms agglutination and trapping in mucus are less widely discussed, but are crucial for the protection of mucosal surfaces. Systemically and mucosally delivered antibodies have demonstrated efficacy in SHIV prevention studies. In this post, we describe some of the important progress to date on monoclonal antibodies as future MPTs.