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US government purchases additional 1.4 million doses of REGEN-COV™

Regeneron announced a new US government agreement to purchase additional doses of REGEN-COV (casirivimab and imdevimab) antibody cocktail.

Antibodies attacking covid-19

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals have announced that the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD) will purchase 1.4 million additional doses of REGEN-COV™ (casirivimab and imdevimab). According to the agreement, the government will continue to provide REGEN-COV at no cost to patients.

Under the new arrangement, Regeneron will supply an additional 1.4 million 1,200 mg doses of REGEN-COV to the US government by January 31 2022, at a cost of $2,100 per dose. This follows two earlier agreements with the US government announced in July 2020 and January 2021.

In addition, the REGEN-COV development programme has reported positive Phase III trial results across the spectrum of COVID-19 infection, from prevention to hospitalisation:

  • Prevention of symptomatic infection in asymptomatic household contacts; (both uninfected and infected) of SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals;
  • Treatment of non-hospitalised patients already infected with SARS-CoV-2;
  • Treatment of certain patients hospitalised due to COVID-19 infection, including the UK RECOVERY trial.

REGEN-COV is a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies, casirivimab and imdevimab, that was designed specifically to block infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 using Regeneron’s proprietary VelocImmune® and VelociSuite® technologies. The two virus-neutralising antibodies that form the cocktail bind non-competitively to the critical receptor binding domain of the virus’s Spike (S) protein, which diminishes the ability of mutant viruses to escape treatment and protects against S variants that have arisen in the human population.

“More than a year and a half into this pandemic, too many people are still being hospitalised and dying due to COVID-19,” commented Dr Leonard Schleifer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Regeneron. “While vaccination remains the first line of defence to decrease the burden of COVID-19, REGEN-COV is a key tool that reduces the risk of hospitalisation or death by 70 percent in high-risk individuals when given early in the course of the infection. Recently there has been greater demand for REGEN-COV, and we will provide additional doses to the US government as quickly as possible.”