Just went and researched Regeneron given @minnesotafarmcountry s appalled note. Below was the top rated post on the Regeneron (REGN) board. So REGN does NOT treat the critically ill, its for early stage only, from the below. Aviptadil which he references, is for BEFORE you hit respiratory distress/failure. MESO? Its for when you're on the ventilator and likely to die.
I'm comfortable with our still having a market - its called "When You're Really Sick - Call Mesoblast".
TOM:A few days ago I posted on both the Regeneron & Relief Boards comments critical of the hype surrounding the release of phase 3 data from Regeneron’s neutralizing antibody cocktail study. My thoughts have not changed at all. However, despite my criticism, I think that it wasn’t a bad option to treat Trump with Regeneron’s neutralizing antibody cocktail. What the phase 3 study showed was that the patients that did best were those that were otherwise healthy with minimal symptoms & who were very early in the course of their disease. That pretty much describes Trump’s clinical presentation.
I remain convinced Regeneron’s antibody cocktail is not the magic cure the world is still waiting for. Frankly I think that Aviptadil much more closely fits that description. For review I thought it might be worthwhile to repost my original comments.The following is what I posted on both the Regeneron & RLFTF Boards:Regeneron reported their results today & the uninformed are atwitter. Regeneron’s neutralizing antibody cocktail is basically a synthetic convalescent plasma.Regeneron was smart enough to try it on the best patient population for their therapy, patients very early on in the course of their disease & patients not sick enough to be hospitalized. Additionally Regeneron was wise to measure both viral loads and whether or not the patients already had their own neutralizing antibodies. Previous studies have shown no benefit of treatment with convalescent plasma or other synthetic neutralizing antibodies if the recipient patients were seriously ill. Likewise, earlier studies have shown no benefit if the patients already had very high neutralizing antibody levels as almost all seriously ill patients have. If you don’t believe me about my last statement, believe the Dutch. In Holland they planned a national study to test whether or not convalescent plasma was effective COVID19 treatment. Their country, because of their nationalized medical system & meticulous medical record keeping, would be ideal to do such a study. They would know everyone in their country who had survived COVID19 & could solicit them to donate their plasma in the hope of saving other’s lives. In addition in the Netherlands it would be easier to recruit patients to a randomized trial placebo controlled trial. They recruited 28 of Holland’s best & the brightest scientists & physicians to do the study. However, almost as soon as they began their study they abandoned it. When they actually measured the neutralizing antibodies that the recipient patients already had, they found that the convalescent plasma added nothing! In most cases the critically ill patients had higher levels of neutralizing antibodies than the convalescent plasma had! It turns out that by far most patients who are critically ill with COVID19 have been sick for at least 2-3 weeks. That’s all the time it takes for most patients to make their own neutralizing antibodies.https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.01.20139857v1.full.pdfThere likely is a role for convalescent plasma & neutralizing antibodies as prophylaxis following known COVID19 exposure in patients that have not received a prior effective vaccine, assuming an effective COVID19 vaccine ever does arrive.Contrast Regeneron’s neutralizing antibodies to Aviptadil. From all the data gleaned so far, Aviptadil is also effective very early in the course of COVID19 & can be used as prophylaxis. However, unlike convalescent plasma & all other synthetic neutralizing antibodies, Aviptadil is also effective in the most critically ill patients.You notice that other potential COVID19 therapies never describe their results as “rapid.” Only Aviptadil uses that word to describe their results. For non medical personnel let me say that “rapid” is science-speak for miraculous, stupendous, marvelous, astonishing, etc.
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