The Best Hope Until A Vaccine

Regeneron’s antibody treatment for Covid-19 probably won’t be convenient. Who knows what it will cost. But it could be saving lives by fall

- By Robert Langreth & Susan Berfield

The novel coronavirus is devious, persistent, and, according to some scientists, not even alive. But, as the world has had to learn, this tiny bundle of genetic material is a highly efficient invader. Each particle is armored with roughly 100 protrusions, or spikes, perfectly evolved to latch onto an enzyme on the surfaces of throat and lung cells, then slip into them and replicate millions and millions of times. Older coronaviruses, such as the one that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, operated similarly. The spikes of the new coronavirus, though, clasp human cells much more tightly, which appears to be one reason it spreads more easily. In the three months since scientists in China identified it, the coronavirus has infected more than 2.6 million people around the world and killed at least 180,000.

Neutralizing those spikes may be the best way to prevent the virus from harming its host. And among the most promising approaches to doing that is finding the right antibodies. Multiple companies are doing this, using antibodies from laboratory mice and recovered patients. Unlike existing medicines being tested on the virus—such as hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug controversially touted by President Trump, and remdesivir, an antiviral compound originally developed by Gilead Sciences Inc. to fight Ebola—antibody drugs are being designed specifically to disable the new virus where it’s most vulnerable. They’re taking advantage of sophisticated technologies developed over the past two decades to create exquisitely targeted medicines. If they work, the therapies could be used in two crucial ways: to treat those already infected and, in the absence of a vaccine, as a short-term prophylactic for those at high risk.