AstraZeneca's antibody regimen prevents COVID-19 in high-risk groups
(Ref: This is Money, Evening Standard, Financial Post, Bloomberg, FinanzNachrichten, The Wall Street Journal, AstraZeneca)
August 20th, 2021
AstraZeneca announced Friday that its long-acting antibody regimen AZD7442 significantly reduced the incidence of symptomatic COVID-19 compared to placebo in a pre-exposure prophylaxis study. Principal investigator Myron Levin said the results "show that one dose of AZD7442, delivered in a convenient intramuscular form, can quickly and effectively prevent symptomatic COVID-19."
The Phase III PROVENT trial randomised 5197 people to receive either a single intramuscular dose of AZD7442, which combines the two antibodies tixagevimab and cilgavimab, or placebo for the prevention of COVID-19. AstraZeneca noted that participants included adults who were determined to have an increased risk for inadequate response to active immunisation or having increased risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection, with more than 75% having co-morbidities.
No cases of severe COVID-19, death
Top-line results showed that AZD7442 cut the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 by 77% compared to placebo. AstraZeneca noted that there were 25 cases of symptomatic COVID-19 at the primary analysis, which included 5172 participants who did not have SARS-CoV-2 infection at baseline. The company added that there were no cases of severe COVID-19 or COVID-19-related deaths in people treated with AZD7442, while in the placebo arm, there were three cases of severe COVID-19, which included two deaths.
AstraZeneca indicated that AZD7442 was well tolerated in the study with preliminary analyses suggesting that adverse events were balanced between the two groups.