Regeneron COVID-19 antibody drug reduces infection risk 82% in clinical trial

Regeneron COVID-19 antibody drug reduces infection risk 82% in clinical trial
Maia Anderson - 2 hours ago Print | Email
Share Listen

TEXT
Regeneron said Nov. 8 that its COVID-19 antibody cocktail reduced the risk of contracting COVID-19 by 81.6 percent for eight months after administration in a phase 3 clinical trial.

During the eight-month follow-up period, Regeneron said there were no hospitalizations from COVID-19 infection among the people receiving the antibody cocktail, called REGEN-COV, and six in the placebo group.

"Today's new data demonstrate how a single dose of REGEN-COV can help protect people from COVID-19 for many months after administration," Myron Cohen, MD, director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in a news release.

The trial included people living in the same household as someone with a COVID-19 infection.

"In this trial, a single dose of REGEN-COV provided long-term protection against COVID-19, including times of particularly high risk from household exposure, and in the longer-term during ongoing broader exposure," George Yancopoulos, MD, PhD, Regeneron's president and chief scientific officer, said in the news release.

He added that the drug could be particularly useful for immunocompromised people, who may not get adequate protection from the virus from existing vaccines.

REGEN-COV is a combination of the monoclonal antibodies casirivimab and imdevimab. In November 2020, it received FDA emergency use authorization. The FDA revised its emergency use authorization July 30, allowing the treatment to be used as a postexposure prophylaxis for COVID-19 in individuals who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19.

Read the full news release here