Dr. Sean Conley, the President’s physician, released a note on Friday afternoon that the President had completed an infusion of 8 grams of Regeneron’s experimental polyclonal antibody treatment as a “precautionary measure” after his diagnosis of Covid-19 late last night.“As of this afternoon the President remains fatigued but in good spirits,” said Conley’s note. “He’s being evaluated by a team of experts and together we’ll be making recommendations to the President and First Lady in regards to next best steps.”Antibodies against viruses are immune system cells naturally produced by both humans and animals, but some antibodies are more powerful than others. Regeneron’s treatment consists of two antibodies, which were identified after screening thousands of candidates from both mice that have been genetically modified to have a human immune system and from patients that have already recovered from Covid-19. The hope is that one or both of these antibodies will target the spike protein on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which would prevent the virus from infecting healthy cells within the body. This drug is similar to one that Regeneron began developing against Ebola several years ago, which showed positive results in a study published last year. It’s worth noting that so far, the company only has the results from the first 275 patients who were treated with the new Covid-19 drug, most of whom were significantly younger than President Trump and were not hospitalized. While there is an ongoing trial of hospitalized patients, that data has not been released yet.“There’s nothing bad about these results, you just can’t say much about how transformative this is going to be,” Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, told STAT when the initial trial results came out on September 29th. “This doesn’t cut it, but it’s moving in the right direction, that’s for sure.”Regeneron is not the only company working on an antibody treatment for Covid-19. Other companies include Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca and Sorrento Therapeutics. The President’s doctor also said that in addition to the new drug, President Trump has been taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and a daily aspirin. Famotidine (a stomach acid blocker), melatonin (a sleep aid) and aspirin are not out of the ordinary. There has been some speculation that zinc and vitamin D may help prevent or shorten the length of illness from Covid-19, but this has not been definitively proven. The President’s age and weight, however,have been demonstrated to be serious risk factors for developing severe complications from Covid-19. Full coverage and live updates on the Coronavirus
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