To Regeneron, there’s no question about it: “We as a society have to do a much better job” of getting antibody therapies—such as the company’s own—to patients, R&D chief George Yancopoulos said Monday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
Like Eli Lilly’s single-antibody treatment, Regeneron’s antibody cocktail bears an emergency use authorization in mild-to-moderate COVID-19 patients at least 12 years of age who aren’t hospitalized but are at high risk of progressing to severe COVID-19. But while the treatments are available, they’re not seeing anywhere near the level of use they would be if all eligible patients were receiving them.
And “it’s a problem,” Yancopoulos said. “Every day, there are hundreds of thousands of people getting infected that fit the profile where they could benefit from the antibody therapies. They could slow down very significantly the progression of these people into hospitals and into more severe states.
Author: Canan Schuman, PharmD/PhD
Canan Schumann is Chief Editor for Axxiem and for Axxiem's blog "BiotechOntheWeb". When not writing for Axxiem, Canan works as a Clinical Research Scientist II at the Research and Development Department at Molecular Testing Labs, developing endpoint assays for the detection of infectious disease and cancer. Canan currently resides in Portland, Oregon, where he received his Honors Bachelor of Science (HBS), Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD.), and his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Biopharmaceutics at Oregon State University.