STORM CHASER MISSES THE TARGET

[bennevisplace]

Following hard on the heels of Regeneron, who just posted lukewarm results from the RECOVERY trial healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo... AstraZeneca has announced that its long-acting monoclonal antibody AZD7442 failed to meet the primary endpoint in the placebo-controlled Phase III STORM CHASER study in people exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. clinicaltrialsarena.com/new... The observed 33% decrease in the risk of developing symptomatic Covid was deemed not statistically significant. In mitigation, however, there was a pronounced decrease in that risk in subjects who were PCR-negative for the virus at baseline.

[ikahan]

Maybe it's best for pre-exposure prophylactics just like the vaccine . In other words if you have a Covid infection and then you take the vaccine , the vaccine will not help. The same with AZD7442 it's useful before infection to prevent infection. Although this is a small trial.

[bennevisplace in reply to ikahan]

Yes, I think there's reason to hope that the PROVENT trial of the same drug will produce better results than STORM CHASER.

If I could paraphrase what you wrote, antibodies' primary job is to stop the virus entering cells. So giving antibodies to a patient who already has severe disease is like closing the front door after the swarm of bees has filled the lounge. I just know one of our beekeeper members is going to pick me up on that.

Studies have shown that the effectiveness of monoclonals as treatment depends on their being given at an early stage. While the swarm is making up its collective mind.

But of course it's only vaccine or the disease that give you a chance of priming T cells.

[ikahan in reply to bennevisplace]

Could we hope that if the vaccine didn't produce any antibodies at least it has activated the T cells ?My husband had the T detect test and it came back positive for TCR corresponding to the spike protein. Not a quantitative test and no data on the health of these T cells.

[bennevisplace in reply to ikahan]

Well that sounds promising. I don't know of that test. Do you have a link?

[ikahan in reply to bennevisplace]

adaptivebiotech.com/2021/02... test is based on the sequencing of the TCRs ( not on the assay that measures the production of cytokines that would kill the virus)

[ikahan in reply to ikahan]

If the link doesn't work look up Adaptive Biotechnologies.

[bennevisplace in reply to ikahan]

Thanks. I have read about this test.

[ChristyAnne_UK in reply to bennevisplace]

Great bee analogy!

[LeoPa]

They are sure trying hard to capitalize on the disease. Where is the trial for the budesonide based inhalers? There was a population study in real life. Just confirm what's known.

[bennevisplace in reply to LeoPa]

There's this one.

thelancet.com/article/S2213...

[LeoPa in reply to bennevisplace]

Amazing that this has been known for nearly half a year and it is not yet widely adopted as treatment. Smells like conspiracy to me. Or is it just ignorance?

[bennevisplace]

Not sure Leo, but this Phase 2 study in the UK was published 2 months ago and according to the authors "To our knowledge, this is the first interventional trial to study the efficacy of inhaled corticosteroids in early COVID-19 illness".

I understand that budesonide can be bought OTC in the USA, but in the UK it is a prescription drug for asthma and COPD. To get it approved for Covid, AZ might well need to do a Phase 3 trial before applying to the MHRA for registration.

Incidentally the same group of researchers is trialling a nasal spray version of the AZ vaccine medsci.ox.ac.uk/news/univer...