By Deena Beasley
(Reuters) – Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc on Thursday said it has begun human testing of its experimental antibody cocktail as a treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The trial has an “adaptive” design and could quickly move from dozens of patients to eventually include thousands, Chief Scientific Officer George Yancopoulos told Reuters.
“If it goes perfectly well, within a week or two we will move to the second phase. Within a month or so of that we will have clear data that this is or isn’t working. By the end of summer, we could have sufficient data for broad utilization.”
The dual antibody, called REGN-COV2, is being compared to a placebo treatment in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, and in COVID-19 patients who have symptoms but are not sick enough to be hospitalized. Regeneron also plans to study REGN-COV2 for preventing the infection in people at high-risk of exposure – such as healthcare workers – and in uninfected people with close exposure to someone who has tested positive for the virus.
Antibodies are proteins made by the body’s immune system that recognize, bind and neutralize an invading virus. Regeneron’s cocktail – which contains an antibody made by the company and a second isolated from humans who recovered from COVID-19 – is designed so that its two antibodies bind to the coronavirus’ spike protein, limiting the ability of viruses to escape.
Trial patients will be given a single intravenous infusion of REGN-COV2. In the prevention segments of the study, participants will be given smaller subcutaneous doses, Yancopoulus said. Investigators will be measuring patients’ viral loads and keeping track of symptoms.
Regeneron said its treatment could be useful even if a COVID-19 vaccine is developed since the elderly and people with compromised immune systems often do not respond well to vaccines.
Yancopoulos said, even though Regeneron does not yet have proof that REGN-COV2 is effective, the company has cleared the way for production of the antibody compound at its New York manufacturing facility.
(Reporting by Deena Beasley; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
