The Japanese company Takeda Pharmaceutical will try to introduce coronavirus antibodies this year, joining the promise of global pharmaceutical companies to step up their efforts to fight a global pandemic.

“We believe that within 9 to 18 months, we could have a product that has real potential to treat the most critically ill patients”, said Rajeev Venkayya, President of Takeda’s Global Vaccine Business Unit.

Takeda’s experimental treatment, a concentration of antibodies taken from patients who have recovered from COVID-19 infection, is part of a concerted effort by the industry to find effective treatments and vaccines for the new coronavirus that has infected more than 240,000 people around the world, killing more than 10,000 people.

More than 80 clinical trials are now underway to test new and existing medicines, according to the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA).

The companies are developing drugs to treat coronavirus disease at light speed, Rajeev Venkayya said during a briefing Thursday after the IFPMA meeting, which included executives Eli Lilly, Roche, Sanofi Pasteur, and Johnson & Johnson.

The efforts of pharmaceutical manufacturers will be supported by an accelerated regulatory process in the United States. On Thursday, US President Donald Trump ordered the Food and Drug Administration to accelerate research on coronavirus drugs and vaccines to meet the growing need for such funds.

Takeda is the largest employer in medicine in Cambridge, Massachusetts – the biotech capital of the United States – after acquiring Shire last year.