Regeneron's COVID-19 antibody cocktail significantly reduced the viral load and probability of a medical visit for patients with mild to moderate cases of the disease, according to preliminary results from the drugmaker's phase 2/phase 3 trial for the drug.
Patients treated with the drug, called REGN-COV2, saw a 57 percent reduction in COVID-19- related medical visits through day 29 of the trial.It also had a statistically significant effect on decreasing patients' viral load over seven days, with effects being most prominent in patients who had an especially high viral load.
"The first job of an antiviral therapeutic drug is to lower the viral load, and our initial data in 275 patients strongly suggested that the REGN-COV2 antibody cocktail could lower viral load and thereby potentially improve clinical outcomes," George Yancopoulos, MD, PhD, Regeneron's president and chief scientific officer, said in an Oct. 28 news release. "Today's analysis, involving more than 500 additional patients, prospectively confirms that REGN-COV2 can indeed significantly reduce viral load and further shows that these viral reductions are associated with a significant decrease in the need for further medical attention."
The positive results strengthen the antibody treatment's case for an FDA emergency use authorization, which the drugmaker sought Oct. 7.