An international group of scientists has developed a new type of antivenom that may be both more effective and easier to manufacture than current treatments, the team announced last week. Their findings, published in Nature, describe a promising new formulation that researchers say could save thousands of lives each year. According to the World Health Organization, venomous snakebites kill as many as 138,000 people annually, while up to 2.7 million out of roughly 5.4 million bite victims develop serious or life-threatening complications.
Despite how common snakebites are, snakebite envenoming remains one of the world’s most lethal—and most overlooked—tropical diseases, mainly affecting poor, rural communities in tropical regions. Existing antivenoms have significant drawbacks. Today’s formulations are created by extracting antibodies from animals such as horses that have been injected with small, controlled amounts of venom. These antivenoms are costly, difficult to produce, limited in range (many work only against specific species), and can trigger dangerous immune reactions in patients.
In response, the research team set out to design an antivenom that could neutralize venom from more than a dozen African snake species, reduce tissue damage, and cause fewer adverse immune responses — all while being less expensive to make.
In early experiments, the new antivenom showed “considerable promise” in protecting mice from venom, according to the study authors. Human clinical trials could begin within one to two years if funding is secured.
Unlike traditional antivenoms, this approach relies on selecting and replicating tiny antibody fragments known as nanobodies rather than depending solely on antibodies harvested from animals.
“We’ve created an antivenom that doesn’t require constant extraction of antibodies from animals,” said Andreas Hougaard Laustsen-Kiel, the study’s lead author and a biotechnology researcher at the Technical University of Denmark, in a statement. “That means we can potentially produce it at large scale without compromising quality.”
Currently, no antivenom can counteract venom from all medically significant African snake species, even though snakebites in sub-Saharan Africa kill more than 7,000 people each year. To address this gap, the researchers created a cocktail of eight nanobodies—derived from antibodies in camelid species—to target venom from 18 African snakes, including highly dangerous elapids such as cobras, mambas, and rinkhals.
“These elapids are among the deadliest snakes,” said study co-author Anne Ljungars, a biological engineer at the Technical University of Denmark, speaking to Popular Science. “Their venoms contain fast-acting neurotoxins that cause paralysis and respiratory failure. These toxins spread quickly, and the lack of timely, effective treatment contributes to high mortality and disability.”
Nanobodies, which are smaller and more stable than conventional antibodies, can be engineered to bind more precisely and strongly to venom toxins. In lab tests, the resulting antivenom neutralized the venom of 17 out of the 18 species when mixed with venom before being administered to mice.
“A few years ago, if someone had told me you could neutralize venom from snakes across an entire continent using just a few antibodies, I would have said no way,” said Kartik Sunagar, a venom expert at the Indian Institute of Science who was not involved in the study, speaking to The Scientist. “Finding something effective across so many species is incredibly difficult.”
However, mixing venom and antivenom in advance doesn’t reflect real-world treatment. In tests where mice were injected with venom before receiving the antivenom, the formulation was less effective—but still prevented death from six species’ bites.
The study highlights other advantages as well: traditional antivenoms often fail to prevent tissue destruction caused by venom, but the new nanobody-based version appeared to reduce tissue injury in mice even when given later. And because nanobodies are less likely to cause severe immune reactions, clinicians could potentially administer the treatment earlier, without delaying to avoid side effects.
Still, the antivenom remains far from being ready for medical use in humans. Extensive refinement and human trials must come first, and the researchers are now working on improving the formulation and obtaining additional funding.
“We have a moral and global responsibility to help tackle this problem,” Laustsen-Kiel said. “This antivenom has the potential to fundamentally change how snakebites are treated worldwide.”
