New drug cuts deaths among patients with no Covid antibodies

[Harvist]

New drug cuts deaths among patients with no Covid antibodies theguardian.com/world/2021/...

Some good news for us?

[Psmithuk]

Let's hope it’s available soon, thanks for showing this - and note the mention (at last!) of those who make no or minimum defence against Covid.Cx

[bennevisplace]

I'm more disappointed than encouraged by these results from the RECOVERY trial. Regeneron's monoclonal antibody cocktail REGEN-COV2 reduced mortality in seronegative Covid patients by only 20 percent, i.e. from 30 deaths per 100 to 24 deaths. It's no panacea for seriously ill Covid patients without their own antibodies.

The paper, published later today on MedRxiv, may tell us more. It could be that mAbs of this kind (Regeneron, GSK-VIR, Pfizer BnT, Astrazeneca et al) are more effective when administered early in an infection or pre-infection.

Watch out for results from AZ's PROVENT and STORMCHASER trials.

[Jm954 Administrator]

Sadly, this monoclonal antibody cocktail doesn't seem to work well with the newer variants

theguardian.com/world/2021/...

[Sushibruno in reply to Jm954]

😒

[Justasheet1 in reply to Jm954]

Jackie,

Perhaps the data has changed a little? Everything else is changing quickly.

“This article was amended on 18 February 2021 to clarify that monoclonal antibody drugs developed by the three leading contenders had failed or partly failed against one or more of the Covid variants, rather than being wholly ineffective; and to include more detail about the Regeneron and GlaxoSmithKline trials.”

I posted on a new monoclonal 20 days ago:

healthunlocked.com/api/redi...

This virus is a moving target 🎯

Jeff

[bennevisplace in reply to Justasheet1]

Moving target is right Jeff. Vaccines seem to keep up, so far, and should be easy enough to edit as and when more evasive strains emerge (manufacturing and distribution is another story).

Existing monoclonals already seem to be too specific to keep up, e.g. asm.org/Press-Releases/2021.... and are much harder to modify. A promising new monoclonal arrives, e.g. news-medical.net/news/20210... but by the time it completes trials and is authorised it's faced with a different enemy.

If the drug companies want to solve this problem they will have to rethink the technology and meanwhile collaborate like Lilly and GSK.

[bennevisplace in reply to Jm954]

Yes, current variants seem to pose a challenge to current mAbs. Perhaps the solution for immune compromised folk is a cocktail of cocktails. More of this kind of collaboration

gsk.com/en-gb/media/press-r...