Treatments against Covid-19: the track of monoclonal antibodies raises hopes

The global race for vaccination against Covid-19 is now well underway.

The first injections were carried out in the United Kingdom and the United States.

The countries of the European Union are waiting for authorization from the European Medicines Agency to start their campaigns.

The vaccine track is not the only carrier of hope in the fight against the epidemic.

Pharmaceutical companies are also working on the development of drug treatments aimed at reducing or, ideally, destroying the effects of severe forms of coronavirus infection.

Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, Chairman of the Scientific Council, thus evokes, in an exclusive interview with Le Parisien - Today in France, the probable validation, next February, of a "new drug based on monoclonal antibodies".

This treatment, administered to US President Donald Trump when the latter was infected in early October, is still in the experimental stage.

A Nantes start-up is working on it

Developed by the biotechnology company Regeneron and authorized for three weeks by the FDA, the US drug agency, it consists of isolating antibodies from people who have already contracted the disease, reproducing them on a large scale in a synthetic way, then to inject them into patients

in order to prevent the development, in the latter, of a severe form of Covid-19.

In a trial on a sample of 275 patients, Regeneron was pleased that its cocktail had drastically reduced the presence of the virus in outpatients and accelerated their recovery.

Other treatments are being studied, such as that in France from the Nantes start-up Xenothera, also based on the use of monoclonal antibodies.

In clinical trial, Xav-19, that's its name, could be marketed in spring 2021.

Hydroxychloroquine returns to Italy

Conversely, certain drugs quickly showed their limits.

This is the case with remdesivir, a molecule that had been developed to fight the Ebola virus, lopinavir, used as an antiviral against AIDS, or even hydroxychloroquine.

At the end of November, after analyzing the results of the global Solidarity study, the World Health Organization spoke out against the use of these treatments for patients with Covid.

According to the study, unveiled in mid-October, these drug solutions had "little or no effect on hospitalized patients, whether in terms of mortality or length of hospitalization".

The hydroxychloroquine solution, widely promoted by Professor Didier Raoult in France, has not yet said its last word.

Following a long legal battle waged by doctors in Italy, the Italian Council of State finally gave its approval a few days ago - a first in Europe - to its use for the treatment of patients with Covid.

However, its use remains regulated since only doctors can grant its prescription.