Regeneron Drug Reduces Covid-19 Patient Deaths, A Large UK Study Shows

Monoclonal antibody treatment for Covid-19 developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals saved lives among hospitalized patients who had not mounted their own immune response, a large British study published on Wednesday (Jun 16) found.

REGN-COV2 is a cocktail of neutralising antibodies that attach to the coronavirus spike protein, preventing it from using its viral machinery to hijack cells.

The data published by the study represents a significant breakthrough as this is the first time that a medicine has been demonstrated to be effective by directly fighting the SARS-CoV-2 virus and reduce mortality.

The new study, part of a larger U.K. trial called RECOVERY, found that the antibody therapy reduced by a fifth the 28-day mortality of seronegative people admitted to hospital with COVID-19 whose immune system had not mounted an antibody response. Seronegative patients are those people infected with Covid-19 but who had not mounted their own antibody response.

The addition of the monoclonal antibody cocktail reduced the percentage of patients who died from 30% to 24%. The result translates into six fewer deaths for every 100 seronegative patients treated with the therapy, researchers said.

The antibody cocktail also helped the seronegative patients reduce duration of their hospital stay from 17 days to 13 days. The proportion of those who left the hospital within 28 days increased from 58% to 64%.

The study involved 9,785 patients hospitalised with COVID-19 who were randomly allocated to receive usual care plus the antibody combination therapy or just usual care, of which 30% were seronegative.

The therapy, REGEN-COV, has been granted emergency use authorisation for people with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in the United States, but results from the RECOVERY trial provide the clearest evidence of its effectiveness among hospitalised patients.

Last November, the then U.S President Donald Trump had received "a single 8-gram dose" of Regeneron's monoclonal antibody cocktail when he was admitted at Walter Reed National Military Medical centre for treatment of Coronavirus.

Trump credited the Regeneron therapy for his early recovery from coronavirus and said he would push for emergency use of authorisation of the treatment that he was given in the hospital.

However, top US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci expressed suspicion that Regeneron's drug has contributed to Trump's recovery. "You can't prove that until you do a number of studies to show that it actually works," he said.

On Monday, Apollo Hospitals Managing Director Dr Sangita Reddy said that the antibody cocktail Regeneron treatment she took after contracting Covid-19 made a dramatic difference in her recovery from the infection. Reddy said she administered the antibody cocktail treatment after testing Covid-19 positive on June 10 and hospitalised with a high fever.

Last month, the Apollo Group of Hospitals announced that it will offer the antibody cocktail (Casirivimab and Imdevimab) to patients with mild and moderate Covid-19 symptoms and to those who are at high risk of developing the virus.