AstraZeneca's antibody therapy prevents COVID-19 in study

The company said the cocktail of two types of antibodies, initially discovered by Vanderbilt University Medical Center, reduced by 77 percent the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19, the potentially deadly disease caused by the coronavirus.

Reuters

August 20, 2021 / 14:31 IST

AstraZeneca said on Friday its antibody therapy met the main goal of preventing COVID-19 disease in a late-stage study, putting the British drugmaker on track to potentially offer an alternative to vaccines for people with weakened immune systems.

The company said the cocktail of two types of antibodies, initially discovered by Vanderbilt University Medical Center, reduced by 77 percent the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19, the potentially deadly disease caused by the coronavirus.

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More than 75 percent of the participants had chronic conditions, including some linked to a diminished immune response to vaccination, it said.

The results mark a change of fortune for the drugmaker, which reported in June that a smaller late-stage trial failed to provide evidence that the antibody cocktail, known for now as AZD7442, protected people who had contact with an infected person from the disease.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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