The American pharmaceutical company Regeneron announced on Monday that it is entering the most advanced phase of clinical trials for its cocktail of antiviral antibodies intended to combat COVID-19.
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The purpose of the phase 3 study is to test the ability of the drug called REGN-COV2 to prevent infection in people who do not have COVID-19, but who are at risk of getting it because they have had close contact with someone who has it.
The company mentions, for example, the case of individuals who share their roof with a person who has contracted the virus.
The goal is to recruit 2,000 volunteers, through 100 sites in the United States, the company said in a press release.
Regeneron claims that its REGN-COV2, which takes the form of an injection but is not a vaccine, would be able to both prevent and treat an infection.
The company announces that its substance will also be the subject of phase 2 and phase 3 clinical trials in individuals suffering from the disease.
For these trials, the plan is to recruit approximately 1,850 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and some 1,050 infected people, but who are not hospitalized, in 150 locations in the United States, Brazil, Mexico and Chile. The first results are expected “later this summer”.
Regeneron has proprietary technology that allows it to “quickly and efficiently” generate human antibodies from genetically modified mice and convalescent human serum.
This technology allowed him to assess thousands of different antibodies and to select two that seemed to be the most promising to attack SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. They are the ones who end up in treatment.
Antibodies, which are involved in the body’s immune defense, are secreted naturally when the body encounters a virus for the first time or when a vaccine is injected.
Antibody medication provides so-called “passive” immunity to individuals who have not fought the infection and therefore do not have one. This protection is immediate, but less durable than that provided by a vaccine.
Regeneron, on the other hand, maintains that antibodies can “treat an existing infection, unlike vaccines which can only be used preventively”. The company also claims that its antibody cocktail “may be available long before a vaccine”.
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