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Thursday March 28, 2024

Covid-19 treatment enters final stage trials

By Agencies
July 07, 2020

WASHINGTON: The pharmaceutical firm Regeneron on Monday announced it was entering the late stages of its human clinical trials investigating a drug to both treat and prevent Covid-19.

The drug, called REGN-COV2, is a combination of two antibodies that block the coronavirus’ "spike protein" which it uses to invade human cells. The company is moving to the final Phase 3 stage of a trial to determine if its drug can prevent infection among people recently exposed to the virus -- for example through a person in their household.

This trial, run jointly with the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is expected to enroll 2,000 patients in the US. "We are pleased to collaborate with NIAID to study REGN-COV2 in our quest to further prevent the spread of the virus with an antiviral antibody cocktail that could be available much sooner than a vaccine," said Regeneron President George Yancopoulos.

At the same time, Regeneron announced it was moving to the final stages of a trial to determine the drug cocktail’s ability to treat both hospitalized and non-hospitalized Covid-19 patients.

This will involve around 1,850 hospitalized and 1,050 non-hospitalized patients in the US, Brazil, Mexico and Chile, with preliminary data expected later this summer. Regeneron scientists evaluated thousands of antibodies harvested from genetically modified mice and from humans, identifying the two they found to be most potent against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, while not competing against each other.

The company uses a multi-antibody strategy to decrease the chances that the virus will mutate in order to evade the blocking action of a single antibody, an approach it detailed in a recent study in Science. Last year, a triple antibody cocktail developed by Regeneron was shown to be effective against the Ebola virus.

Meanwhile, India announced on Monday that it has nearly 700,000 coronavirus cases, taking it past Russia to become the third-hardest-hit nation in the global pandemic. The health ministry said 697,358 cases had now been recorded, a rise of 24,000 in 24 hours, while Russia has just over 681,000.

The United States and Brazil have the highest numbers of cases but India’s tally is not expected to peak for several more weeks and experts predict the one million figure will be passed this month.

India has registered 19,693 deaths from the virus, a much lower number than many other badly hit countries. India’s major cities have been worst hit by the pandemic. New Delhi and Mumbai each have about 100,000 cases, with 3,000 dead in the capital and nearly 5,000 in Mumbai.

New Delhi has opened a new 10,000-bed temporary virus hospital while other cities are tightening restrictions on movement to head off a new surge in cases.

The Kerala state capital, Thiruvananthapuram imposed a new lockdown from Monday with public transport shut and only pharmacies allowed to open. The clampdown came after hundreds of new cases were reported across the state, which had been praised for its action to curtail the pandemic.