Regeneron to seek US nod for Covid cocktail

ZURICH: Regeneron is pursuing US approval for its Covid-19 monoclonal antibody cocktail as a preventative treatment after it helped cut the risk of symptomatic infections in households where someone else is ill, the US drugmaker said on Monday.

REGEN-COV, a combination of casirivimab and imdevimab, protected household contacts from exposure to Sars-CoV-2, with 72% protection against symptomatic infections in the first week, and 93% after that, according to trial data released by the company.

In a separate trial, Regeneron also said the treatment reduced overall risk of progressing to symptomatic Covid-19 by 31%, and by 76% after the third day.

Regeneron has enlisted Switzerland’s Roche and its biotech facility in South San Francisco to make around 2 million doses annually. The cocktail already has emergency US approval for mild to moderate Covid-19 patients, and the companies are hoping the latest trials convince regulators to expand deployment.

“These data suggest that REGEN-COV can complement widespread vaccination strategies, particularly for those at high risk of infection,” said Myron Cohen, who leads monoclonal antibody efforts for the US National Institutes of Healthsponsored Covid Prevention Network.

A challenge in breaking infection chains, he said, is that some 10% of unvaccinated people in the study who didn’t get the Roche-Regeneron drug while living in a household with an infected individual developed symptomatic infection even with efforts to reduce transmission.