AstraZeneca announced on Tuesday that a late-stage trial failed to show that its COVID-19 antibody therapy protected patients who came into touch with an infected individual from contracting the disease, a minor setback in the company’s efforts to develop vaccine alternatives.
The research assessed whether the therapy, a cocktail of two types of antibodies, could prevent adults who had been exposed to the virus in the past eight days from developing COVID-19 symptoms. When compared to a placebo, the medication, AZD7442, was 33 percent beneficial in reducing the probability of patients having symptoms, but the difference was not statistically significant, suggesting it could have been due to chance rather than the therapy.
A total of 1,121 people from the United Kingdom and the United States took part in the Phase III trial, which was not peer reviewed. At the start of the experiment, the vast majority, though not all, were virus-free.
The results for a group of participants who were not infected to begin with were more promising, however the primary study was based on all individuals’ outcomes.
“While this trial did not meet the primary endpoint against symptomatic illness, we are encouraged by the protection seen in the PCR negative participants following treatment with AZD7442,” AstraZeneca Executive Vice President Mene Pangalos said in a statement.
Further research is being used by the corporation to try to recover the product’s fortunes. Five more trials are being conducted to see if the antibody cocktail can be used as a treatment or a preventative measure.
The next one will most likely come from a larger study looking at the product in people who have a weakened immune system as a result of cancer or an organ transplant and may not benefit from a vaccine.
