Regeneron will provide the US with 300,000 doses of its newly authorized Covid-19 antibody treatment by early January, the company’s CEO, Dr. Leonard Schleifer, said Monday, Report says, citing TASS.
The Food and Drug Administration on Saturday granted an emergency use authorization for the company’s antibody treatment, called REGN-COV2. The experimental therapy was given to President Donald Trump when he contracted the coronavirus in October.
In July, as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, the federal government gave Regeneron $450 million in funding to support the manufacturing of the drug.
Schleifer told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday that the company has 80,000 doses of its antibody treatment immediately ready for distribution. The federal government will be responsible for allocating the quantities to the states “proportion to the need and amount of Covid,” he said.
After January, Regeneron will have the ability to supply 100,000 doses every month, Schleifer said. The company is also conducting experiments to determine whether the dosage can be cut in half, which would eventually double the number of available doses to 200,000 every month if proven effective, he said.
“We hope to have millions of doses available. Now still, that might not be enough,” Schleifer told CNBC, saying an eventual coronavirus vaccine would bring down the number of cases. Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca have all recently provided data suggesting their Covid-19 vaccines protect most people from the virus.