The US government is investing nearly half a billion dollars in the development and large-scale distribution of a treatment against Covid-19 from the British laboratory AstraZeneca, in advanced phase of clinical trials, announced the giant pharmaceutical in a statement Monday.
With an investment of $ 486 million, the US government will contribute to the development and distribution of 100,000 doses by the end of 2020 and may acquire a million more in 2021, he says.
“The AZD7442 antibody combination is advancing rapidly in phase 3 trials,” adds the group.
Two trials “in the United States and elsewhere” will “enroll 6,000 adults for the prevention of Covid-19 disease and additional trials on approximately 4,000 adults will focus on the treatment of contaminations” by the new coronavirus, explains he.
The pharmaceutical group, which is developing in parallel with the University of Oxford a “vaccine candidate”, considered one of the most promising, announced at the end of August that it had launched phase 1 trials on its drug AZD7442, already funded to the tune of $ 25 million by the US government.
The drug AZD7442 is a combination of two long-lasting antibodies derived from convalescent Covid-19 patients, discovered by the US Medical Center at Vanderbilt University and licensed by AstraZeneca in June.