Late stage clinical trials of REGN-COV2, a combination antibody treatment for Covid-19 from Regeneron, have begun, according to a news release from the company today.
The phase three trials will be evaluating the ability of the drug to prevent infection among uninfected people who have had close contact to an infected person, such as a patient’s housemate.
The prevention trial is happening at around 100 sites and is expected to include 2,000 US patients.
The drug has also moved into the phase two/three portion of two trials testing its ability to treat hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients with Covid-19. These trials will involve 1,850 hospitalized patients and 1,050 non-hospitalized patients, and they are expected to be conducted at 150 sites in the United States, Brazil, Mexico and Chile.
The trials are being jointly run with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.
"We are running simultaneous adaptive trials in order to move as quickly as possible to provide a potential solution to prevent and treat COVID-19 infections, even in the midst of an ongoing global pandemic," Dr. George D. Yancopoulos, co-founder, president and chief scientific officer of Regeneron, said. "We are pleased to collaborate with NIAID to study REGN-COV2 in our quest to further prevent the spread of the virus with an anti-viral antibody cocktail that could be available much sooner than a vaccine."
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