REGN-COV2 antibodies prevent and treat SARS-CoV-2 infection in rhesus macaques and hamsters

Baum, Alina; Ajithdoss, Dharani; Copin, Richard; Zhou, Anbo; Lanza, Kathryn; Negron, Nicole; Ni, Min; Wei, Yi; Mohammadi, Kusha; Musser, Bret; Atwal, Gurinder S.; Oyejide, Adelekan; Goez-Gazi, Yenny; Dutton, John; Clemmons, Elizabeth; Staples, Hilary M.; Bartley, Carmen; Klaffke, Benjamin; Alfson, Kendra; Gazi, Michal; Gonzalez, Olga; Dick, Edward; Carrion, Ricardo; Pessaint, Laurent; Porto, Maciel; Cook, Anthony; Brown, Renita; Ali, Vaneesha; Greenhouse, Jack; Taylor, Tammy; Andersen, Hanne; Lewis, Mark G.; Stahl, Neil; Murphy, Andrew J.; Yancopoulos, George D.; Kyratsous, Christos A.

An urgent global quest for effective therapies to prevent and treat coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is ongoing. We previously described REGN-COV2, a cocktail of two potent neutralizing antibodies (REGN10987 and REGN10933) that targets nonoverlapping epitopes on the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein. In this report, we evaluate the in vivo efficacy of this antibody cocktail in both rhesus macaques, which may model mild disease, and golden hamsters, which may model more severe disease. We demonstrate that REGN-COV-2 can greatly reduce virus load in the lower and upper airways and decrease virus-induced pathological sequelae when administered prophylactically or therapeutically in rhesus macaques. Similarly, administration in hamsters limits weight loss and decreases lung titers and evidence of pneumonia in the lungs. Our results provide evidence of the therapeutic potential of this antibody cocktail.