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Epidemiologists and doctors have been repurposing preexisting medications to tackle the virus, but REGN-COV2 offers a new possibility of being the first drug designed based on COVID-19 characteristics, according to the research team.
The U.K. Recovery trial, an Oxford-based study, would include a new promising experimental drug in the treatment of COVID-19 patients.
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The National Hospitals System (NHS) would randomly supply sufferers with REGN-COV2, a combination of two human antibodies. The company has previous experience with a similar drug against Ebola.
“We have already discovered that one treatment, dexamethasone, benefits Covid-19 patients, but the death rate remains too high, so we must keep searching for others,” said Oxford professor and trial leader, Peter Horby.
Unlike other drugs in COVID-19 treatment protocols, the Recovery trial exclusively created REGN-COV2 to combat the virus. The drug was tested in animals with promising results and is ready for the human clinical trial phase.
Here's a map of UK schools with a Covid-19 outbreak. Amazingly some politicians said there was a "moral duty" to open these infection breeding hotspots. https://t.co/YxBbejOhbN pic.twitter.com/Cy2yr1kTH7
— Matt Thomas (@Trickyjabs) September 14, 2020
“We are looking forward to seeing whether REGN-COV2 is safe and effective in the context of a large-scale randomized clinical trial; this is the only way to be certain about whether it works as a treatment for Covid-19,” Horby added.
Epidemiologists and doctors have been repurposing preexisting medications to tackle the virus, but REGN-COV2 offers a new possibility of being the first drug designed based on COVID-19 characteristics, according to the researching team.
Recently, statistics showed that new cases in the U.K. doubled every 7.7 days since mid-August, an alarming contagion rhythm. As of Monday, The United Kingdom registered 371,125 COVID-19 cases and 41,637 deaths.
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