U.S. Demand For COVID-19 Antibody Treatments Grows Rapidly

With the summer outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States resulting in 100,000 hospitalizations per day, Regeneron and GSK / Vir are reporting increasing demand for their antibody treatments.

Regeneron’s antibody cocktail of casirivimab and imdevimab, known as REGEN-COV in the United States, and sotrovimab from GSK / Vir have been shown to prevent and treat acute COVID- infection. 19, thus reducing the number of deaths.

Before the summer outbreak, Regeneron was shipping less than 25,000 doses per week, rising to over 130,000 doses per week by mid-August. Today, the company has more than 150,000 doses per week leaving its facilities to deal with COVID-19 outbreaks, said Regeneron spokeswoman Alexandra Bowie.

In the United States, REGEN-COV is only available under a government supply agreement that saw 1.25 million doses delivered in the second quarter of 2021.

“The US government is carefully monitoring the rate of use and the rate of infections in the country, and will decide whether it wants to place another order or prefers us to move to a business model,” Bowie said. “We are also monitoring and evaluating if / when an additional medicine needs to be produced. We are confident that we can produce and deliver more doses this year if needed, but cannot provide more details at this time. “

REGEN-COV is available in 52 states and territories, with “significant shipments” to states like Florida, Texas and Alabama where infection rates are increasing, Bowie added.

GSK and Vir – which announced last week that its antibody, sotrovimab, had received its first full marketing authorization in Australia under the Xevudy brand – are also seeing a sharp increase in orders.

August orders were 300% higher than in July, said Lyndsay Meyer of GSK. “We are optimistic about the role that sotrovimab may play in the United States, especially given the increase in the Delta variant and the ability of sotrovimab to bind to a region of the virus that does not overlap with the location of the virus. binding site of key mutations in current variants of concern. ,” she said.

GSK and Vir are pursuing a fully commercial model with sotrovimab, which is currently only available in 26 states and territories, although this includes southern states with high rates of COVID-19.

The cost of monoclonal antibody treatments for COVID-19 remains a thorny question. REGEN-COV has a list price of approximately $ 1,250 per dose, while sotrovimab costs over $ 2,000 per dose, although Regeneron’s product is free for patients because the bill is paid by the federal government.

GSK has a co-pay program for commercial patients and, due to previous government aid bills, patients with Medicare and Medicaid, and the uninsured, do not have to pay for treatment.