AstraZeneca Cocktail Drug Showing Promise, Aid Beyond COVID-19 Vaccines

AstraZeneca continues to develop other drugs that can help safeguard people from the threats posed by the coronavirus. Although most are focused on the COVID-19 jabs, it appears the company has scored another breakthrough with its experimental cocktail drug.

AstraZeneca’s cocktail drug is made up of two antibodies called AZD7442. It reduces the risk of severe COVID-19 or death by 50% in non-hospitalized patients who have experienced symptoms for 7 days or less which is the goal of the study.

The said therapy is delivered via injection and is the first known treatment that can serve as preventive medicine after multiple trials. It is ideal as an added layer of protection for people who have weak immune responses to vaccines, Reuters reported.

"These positive results show that a convenient intramuscular dose of AZD7442 could play an important role in helping combat this devastating pandemic," Hugh Montgomery, the trial's principal investigator, said in a statement.

Other drug companies are also working on their classes of drugs. Most have been approved for emergency use in the United States to address mild to moderate COVID-19 cases.

As far as AstraZeneca is concerned, AZD7442 studies to global health regulators data are being submitted to regulators.

"We'll be continuing discussions with regulators around this new data," Montgomery stated.

The study was made across 13 countries where 900 adult participants took part in. One half got AZD7442 while the rest took a placebo. According to AstraZeneca, full trial results will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

"An early intervention with our antibody can give a significant reduction in progression to severe disease, with continued protection for more than six months," Mene Pangalos, executive vice president at AstraZeneca said.

The recent results should be a good sign for individuals who are not hospitalized. A separate trial involving hospitalized COVID-19 patients is currently being studied.