Despite a potential vaccine, the novel coronavirus could return on a seasonal basis, much like the flu, according to Seattle-based company Adaptive Biotechnologies.

That’s one of the reasons Adaptive is teaming up with pharmaceutical giant Amgen, which plans to use Adaptive’s proprietary technology platform to develop therapies to treat the virus.

Adaptive’s CEO Chad Robins says it’s the next big thing in the field of immune sequencing. They will screen blood samples of COVID-19 survivors, then identify which naturally occurring antibodies in the immune system can be used to neutralize the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes the disease.