HIN
An international randomized, controlled Phase 3 clinical trial has begun evaluating the safety and efficacy of an investigational long-acting antibody combination for treating people hospitalized with COVID-19. The trial, part of a master protocol known as ACTIV-3, has an adaptive design allowing investigators to add new sub-studies of additional investigational agents. ACTIV-3 is sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.
The new sub-study is evaluating AZD7442, an investigational long-acting antibody combination developed by biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca (Cambridge, United Kingdom). Antibodies are infection-fighting proteins naturally made by the immune system. Antibodies can prevent viruses from infecting cells, usually by binding to the surface of the virus. In 2020, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, isolated antibodies from two patients who had recovered from COVID-19. These antibodies, which were licensed to AstraZeneca, formed the basis for the synthetic antibodies included in AZD7442. AZD7442 is engineered with AstraZeneca’s proprietary half-life extension technology which helps the therapeutic work for a longer period of time. This investigational long-acting antibody combination might function both as a treatment and as a means of preventing infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. However, the ACTIV-3 trial will only be testing its efficacy as a therapeutic.