When Jacob Granville first spoke to Tim Friede, he said, “I want to get some of your blood.”
As CEO of Biotech Company Centivax, Glanville was developing a universal snake bite treatment. And Friede is a self-taught herpetologist who has an overimmunity to some of the world’s deadliest snake toxins.
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What Granville needed for his “universal” anti-toxicity was a few antibodies, each of which could neutralize many different versions of the toxin. It’s not a small job. Snake venom is a mixture of up to 70 toxins. Different snakes can also produce different combinations, variants, and amounts of these toxins, even if they are the same species across geographical regions and within the region. Even small chemical variations from one toxin to the next can cause very different reactions to bites, making them more effective against one snake zone, but not against another.
However, Granville doubted that it was still possible to achieve the goal, as structurally all venom toxins are variations in around ten protein classes. This suggests that the key sites where these proteins bind to human cells may be similar in many poisons.
If researchers could find antibodies that latch at these common binding sites, “we could make cocktails that could become universally anti-toxic,” Granville said.
He hoped that antibodies in Friede’s blood might work against some of these similar locations. Granville worked with biochemist Peter Kwon and others at the National Institutes of Health and Columbia University with Friede’s 40ml blood samples to create the “wide spectrum” anti-venom. In 2025, Granville, Kwon and colleagues reported that in mice a mixture of three drugs, including those derived from antibodies in Friede’s blood, provides broad protection against the poisons of around 300 elapid families, including various cobras, mamba, taipan and craite.
Granville believes his research shows that universal anti-vivenom is within reach. However, other experts are skeptical of the need and practicality of this approach. They say that what they need is not “universal anti-vivenom.” They would rather see some anti-toxic suites. Each is tailored to snakes in a specific geographical area, making them cheap and quick.
Toxic threat
According to the World Health Organization, up to 138,000 people die from biting from venomous snakes every year, mainly in Africa, Asia and Latin America. However, these numbers can be underestimated. This is because people who are bitten do not always seek medical treatment.
Plus, getting the right anti-venom quickly is a challenge. There are around 600 venomous snake species, and often there are multiple venomous snake species in a particular area, so you may not always know which snake bites them.
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In general, snake venom toxins are neurotoxins that damage the nervous system. Hemotoxin destroys blood flow and coagulation. Cytotoxins that damage cells and tissues.
Most elapids rely on neurotoxins. Among the most lethal types are three-finger toxins (3ftxs) due to the distinctive finger-like loops of these protein structures. The 3ftx family contains long- and short-chain neurotoxins (LNX and SNX). This is most dangerous because it quickly and irreversibly binds to receptors in muscle neurons and prevents firing.
Without recoil, 3ftxs causes rapid muscle paralysis and death.
Development of Universal Antiberrym
To develop a new anti-Ventivenom mixture, the Glanville team created a library of antibodies that separate DNA from Friede’s blood and counteract the snake venom toxin. From these, they isolated those who neutralized many of the most dangerous.
You take medicines for insulin, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer drugs, bad breath, turn it into one pill, turn it into one pill, give birth to the medicine you said. [if you] I’m suffering from one of these. Here you just need to take a multi-lug.
Andreas Hougard Raustsen Kiel of the Institute of Technology in Denmark
“The behavior of Anti-Venom is when you disable it [toxin]”They’re the most common venomous,” said Kartik Snagar, an evolutionary geneticist who leads the Institute of Evolutionary Venolism at the Indian Institute of Science and is working on developing anti-toxicity for snakes found in certain regions of India.
Glanville and colleagues discovered that an antibody called LNX-D09 is effective against LNX, and another SNX-B03 works against SNXS. They combined these with a drug called Varespladib. This was previously shown to neutralize another type of snake venom toxin called phospholipase A2 (PLA2), which breaks down the cell membrane and causes tissue death, inflammation, bleeding, or swelling. This cocktail protected mice from 19 venomous snake species. Complete protection against 13 species, and for the remaining six species, the severity of symptoms was reduced. Their paper was published in Journal Cell earlier this year.
Difficult tasks
However, the complexity of snake venom makes it extremely daunting to develop a versatile solution.
“Snake bites are more than just illness…[and] Behind each snake there is a different composition of venom. The toxins important to African snakes may also be absent from snake venom in the Americas,” said Andreas Hoagard Rausthsen Kiel, a biotechnology at the Institute of Technology Denmark.
Laustsen-Kiel does not believe that a universal antidote to snake venom is possible. “You’re taking medication for insulin, Alzheimer’s, cancer drugs, bad breath, make it one pill, and hey, you’re not taking any narcotics. [if you] The one who is struggling with one of these things is to take our multi-rag here,” Raustsenkiel told Live Science.
He also warned from hyping the idea that “universal” anti-vivenom is near. The Glanville team’s new Antivenom cocktails are effective against snakes in many regions, but only work on research venom.
“To a non-expert, it may seem like a very broad neutralization, but all selected species have a very similar poison,” said Rausthsen Kiel. However, he added that snakes highlighted in this study often have cousins close to the same region that produce venoms that are different from the target venoms for new mixtures, so they are unlikely to tackle venom, he added.
Still, he said Granville and his team’s work are important as it examines an approach that has been around for a decade. “If you go one by one, you’ll want to make antibodies that are broadly neutralizing and make cocktails. [of those]it is probably a good strategy to make better anti-toxicity. ”
Instead of trying to create universal anti-toxicity, a better approach is to mix and match a panel of widely neutralizing antibodies unique to each geography, he said. This means targeting snake species venom found in certain regions, not in the world.
Century Technology Behind Snake Antivenom’s Production
However, there is another barrier to ideal anti-toxicity. Production still relies on 125-year-old techniques that inject venom into animals such as horses and sheep and use antibodies to create human anti-anti-agents. This approach has many drawbacks. First, most snake species do not have any specific anti-toxic properties. Even if that is the case, its effectiveness may vary depending on the poison. Additionally, non-human antibodies run the risk of causing allergic reactions such as anaphylaxis and serum disease in some users.
What Raustsenkiel wrote in 2024 requires a rapid and efficient way to produce lab-made antibodies (MABS) specifically designed for the human immune system.
We may be closer to that goal than the universal anti-vivenom. In February 2024, Sunagar and colleagues reported a broadly neutralizing human MAB against a diverse range of LNX from Elapids. After testing over 50 billion synthetic human antibodies, they went to zero to what they did their job. Their research presented a framework for developing more such anti-vivenom treatments.
The secret to such a widespread neutralization is that, told Live Science, disabling one key element in Snake Venom completely neutralizes the venom. Therefore, it is necessary to find specific antibodies that may be effective against many poisons with similar toxins.
Their synthetic antibodies neutralized the entire poison of Cobra (Ophiophagashanna), the king of the Western Ghats Mountains in India. Monocurcobra (Najakautia) in eastern India, multibanded craits (Bungal Multitines) in southeastern Asia, black mamba (Sub-Saharania)
“Achieving wide neutralization is no longer a challenge,” Sunagaru told Live Science. “The only challenge is to mass-produce these antibodies and make them available in snake projects.”
This is because the more components anti-venom treatments have, the more expensive it becomes, and it becomes economically infeasible to produce and distribute in developing countries, which can bear the brunt of the snake.
Granville believes that universal anti-vivenom is possible, but his anti-vivenom cocktail has not yet been tested in humans. His company is in consultation with an Australian veterinarian group to try out a cocktail of pet dogs with snake bits. They are also considering creating similar mixtures of antibodies that broadly neutralize for the Viper family.
On the other side of the world, Sunagar’s lab is working on antibodies to Indian Vipers. His idea of universal anti-vivenom is not a single product.
“In theory, it’s possible to create such an anti-vivenom, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the best solution,” he said. Rather, he sees a combination of two or three products in different regions that neutralize snake poison much larger than what is currently available.
Meanwhile, Granville’s team is currently developing anti-vivenom to counter bites from Vipers, the other major venomous snake family.
“We’re running the same game plan we did with Elapids…[and] Granville said.
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