How COVID antibody cocktails could help protect unvaccinated people

Regeneron's antibody cocktail could effectively provide "immediate protection to unvaccinated people," the company said Monday.

Regeneron announced that in a phase 3 trial, its monoclonal antibody cocktail protected against COVID-19 among people who were living with someone infected with the coronavirus, The New York Times reports.

This trial consisted of 1,505 people who lived in the same household as a person who tested positive for COVID-19 within the previous four days, and the antibody cocktail reduced the risk of symptomatic COVID-19 by 81 percent. Regeneron says it will ask the FDA to expand the emergency use authorization given to the antibody cocktail, which is now used for high-risk people infected with COVID-19.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"These antibodies may be particularly useful in individuals who are not yet vaccinated, and may also have potential in those who are immunosuppressed and may not respond well to vaccines," Dan Barouch, the trial's co-principal investigator, said.

Regeneron Chief Scientific Officer George Yancopoulos also said the antibody cocktail "may help provide immediate protection to unvaccinated people who are exposed to the virus." This study was the newest evidence suggesting that drugs of this kind "not only prevent the worst outcomes of the disease when given early enough, but also help prevent people from getting sick in the first place," the Times wrote, while The Wall Street Journal noted the Regeneron drug could "provide temporary stopgap protection as people await vaccines."

Myron Cohen, one of the lead investigators of the study, also pointed out to Stat News that it's a "really, really big deal" that the Regeneron study administered the antibody drug via an injection, as needing to start an IV to use such antibody drugs has "unequivocally" been a barrier.