AstraZeneca PLC's antibody cocktail was effective at preventing people with mild or moderate COVID-19 infection from worsening in a study that bolsters the drugmaker’s ambitions for the product.
The cocktail halved the risk of developing severe illness or death compared with a placebo in 822 participants who had been symptomatic for a week or less and weren’t hospitalized, AstraZeneca said in a statement Monday.
The results are another boon for the injected product after it was also found to be highly effective at preventing symptomatic disease in high-risk people. The news comes after Merck & Co. fueled optimism that it will soon have the first COVID-19 pill. Both treatments could offer a simple way to treat patients before they ever reach the hospital.