A new weapon in the war against SARS-CoV-2 has been found

AN ANTIBODY THERAPY from Regeneron, a firm in upstate New York, improves the survival of patients with covid-19 and offers renewed hope for the treatment of those most seriously ill with the disease. A study in British hospitals found that Regen-Cov saved the lives of many of those unable to make their own antibodies in response to SARS-CoV-2. Such “seronegative” individuals constituted about a third of the 9,785 hospital patients in the study. As compared with a control group given standard treatment (either a steroid called or, for the sickest, an anti-inflammatory known as ), 20% more patients survived. Regen-Cov also reduced the median length of hospital stays from 17 to 13 days.Regen-Cov is a combination of two monoclonal antibodies, known as casirivimab and imdevimab. Antibodies are immune-system proteins that disable pathogens by locking specifically onto them. Both casirivimab and imdevimab bind to different sites on the coronavirus’s “spike” protein, preventing the virus from infecting cells. Using two antibodies instead of one reduces the risk of the virus evolving resistance to the treatment.