What is Regeneron’s ‘antibody cocktail’? The experimental Covid-19 drug taken by Donald Trump

The Regeneron drug is undergoing clinical trials

Credit: AP

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The antibody cocktail taken by Donald Trump is an experimental therapy that uses two or more lab-engineered antibodies that is believed to reduce levels of the coronavirus and improve a patient’s symptoms.

Mr Trump was given the drug before being taken to hospital on Friday after experiencing symptoms of Covid-19.

The antibody cocktail, produced by US biotechnology company Regeneron, is still undergoing clinical trials and has not received any form of regulatory approval.

The company announced on Tuesday that its drug appeared to knock back the virus, reducing levels of the virus in patients and relieving symptoms when given to people recently diagnosed with Covid-19 who had not been admitted to hospital.

Regeneron said it had the best results on people who had not already mounted an immune response to the virus.

However, some experts queried the decision to give the president an untried medicine so early in his treatment, however promising its trial results.

The results involved 275 patients whose condition seemed to improve after taking the treatment.

While the company’s recent results only involved a small number of patients, and the data has not yet been peer reviewed, many experts believe the synthetic antibody treatment could be the best hope of  turning the deadly virus into a treatable illness.

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They are “a real best chance of being a game changer,” according to Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health.

The experimental therapy works by the synthetic antibodies imitating the body’s own disease-fighting response. The aim is to boost a person’s immune defence, instead of waiting for the body to produce its own response, and before the virus can cause too much harm.

It is not just Regeneron which hopes to produce an effective treatment for coronavirus — there are at least 70 different antibody treatments being developed according to the Biotechnology Innovation Organisation, an association that represents major biotechnology companies.

Read more: How coronavirus infiltrated the White House, reaching Donald Trump, the ‘world’s most tested man’