Anti-Covid antibodies move quickly into the clinic

Anyone marvelling at the speed with which the first antibody against Covid-19 entered the clinic will note that the development pace has not slowed. Since Evaluate Vantage covered this space barely a week ago two further projects, from Lilly/Junshi and from Regeneron, have entered phase I. Not to be outdone, the first antibody into the clinic, Lilly/Abcellera’s LY-CoV555, is about to start phase II, an entry just unveiled on Clinicaltrials.gov reveals. While phase I is in hospitalised patients, the phase II study, due to begin tomorrow, will enrol 400 mild to moderate Covid-19 subjects. LY-CoV555 will be compared against placebo in a double-blind fashion, with change in day-11 Covid-19 viral load as primary endpoint. The separate Lilly/Junshi project, JS016, which binds a different epitope on the virus’s spike protein, is now in a healthy volunteer trial. Meanwhile, Regeneron’s multi-antibody cocktail REGN-COV2 has started its first two phase I studies, also in hospitalised and non-hospitalised patients. The combo has been revealed to comprise two antibodies, REGN10933 and REGN10987, and two more trials in the prophylactic setting (in healthcare workers and in people with close exposure to a Covid-19 patient) are planned, Regeneron says.