October 30, 2020

expert reaction to Regeneron statement announcing a pause in recruitment of COVID-19 patients with high oxygen requirements to the REGN-COV2 trial

Regeneron have announced a pause in the recruitment of COVID-19 patients with high oxygen requirements to their REGN-COV2 antibody cocktail treatment trials for COVID-19.

Professor Peter Horby and Professor Martin Landray, Co-leads, RECOVERY trial, University of Oxford, UK, said:

“Today Regeneron have issued a statement announcing a pause in recruitment of COVID-19 patients with high oxygen requirements to one of their trials of the REGN-COV2 antibody cocktail.¹ We note that this is a hold pending collection and analysis of further data, and that enrolment and randomisation of other patients with COVID-19 to this and other studies of the drug continues.

“Since REGN-COV2 is being studied in the RECOVERY trial, we have today discussed this announcement with Regeneron, with the UK Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and with the chair of the RECOVERY independent Data Monitoring Committee. The independent Data Monitoring Committee will review the latest data from the ongoing RECOVERY trial on Thursday 5 November. In the meantime, the RECOVERY trial will continue as planned.”

 https://investor.regeneron.com/news-releases/news-release-details/regn-cov2-independent-data-monitoring-committee-recommends/

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

Declared interests

Prof Martin Landray: 

– Co-chief investigator of the RECOVERY trial of potential treatments for COVID-19 (funded by UKRI and NIHR; contributions to supply of study treatment from Abbvie, Roche, and Regeneron).

– Research funding to University of Oxford received from Novartis, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Merck Sharp & Dohme.-

– Infrastructure and core funding received from Health Data Research UK, NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, UK Biobank Ltd, MRC Population Health Research Unit, and British Heart Foundation Centre for Research Excellence.

– Employee of University of Oxford with salary supported by Li Ka Shing Foundation, Health Data Research UK, NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, Wellcome Trust, and National Health Service.

– I do not accept personal honoraria payments directly or indirectly from the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, or food industries although reimbursement to the University of Oxford for the costs of travel and accommodation to participate in scientific meetings may be accepted. I hold no shares in and receive no consultancy payments directly or indirectly from tobacco, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, or food companies. I comply with the Independence of Research Policy of the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford. For details see: https://www.ndph.ox.ac.uk/files/about/ndph-independence-of-research-policy-jun-20.pdf/@@download

Prof Peter Horby: “Chief Investigator of the RECOVERY trial.”