Regeneron’s antibody COVID-19 treatment is popular in the U.S. — why not in Canada?
Global News
The Regeneron antibody cocktail is widely used to treat COVID-19 in the U.S., but Canadian doctors have trouble getting the drugs.
The Regeneron antibody cocktail, a combination of drugs used to treat COVID-19, is flying off the shelves in the United States.
The U.S. has purchased nearly three million doses at a cost of around US$2,100 each — much higher than a typical dose of COVID-19 vaccine — and is making the treatment available to patients for free, said the manufacturer.
And the World Health Organization endorsed on Friday the medication for some patients at high risk of hospitalization.
But in Canada, this and other drugs, known as monoclonal antibody treatments, are hardly being used — even though doctors say they would be a useful addition to their COVID-fighting arsenal.
“This new antibody cocktail is the one that is probably the most promising for people with mild COVID-19 and also seems to be promising for people who are hospitalized with COVID-19, who are naïve to the virus: so they haven’t been vaccinated or they haven’t been infected before,” said Dr. Amol Verma, a physician and scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto.
These drugs are a direct shot of antibodies targeting the virus that causes COVID-19, he said, designed to help people who have already been infected better fight it off, and lessening the chance that they may have to be hospitalized.
Some patients say the treatments made a huge difference in their lives.
Joyce Wachsmuth, of Eau Claire, Wis., and her husband were infected with COVID-19 in January. A breast cancer survivor, she had never felt so much pain.
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