Clinical Trials Arena

Signal- HHS/Regeneron Covid-19 deal includes list price clause for affordability

Regeneron is developing an antibody for Covid-19 prevention with the help of US government funding.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals will sell potential Covid-19 prophylactic antibody at an internationally comparable price in the US to make it more affordable, as per a recent update on a deal with the US government.

Under Project NextGen, Regeneron received government funds to develop an antibody therapy to prevent Covid-19. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has now revealed that any product that is commercialised from this public-private partnership will have a list price in the US that is equal or less than the retail price in other comparable markets.

Regeneron entered the Covid-19 market when it released its first antibody therapy REGEN-CoV (casirivimab and imdevimab), also known as Ronapreve, at a time when infection rates were still rising and most people were yet to receive booster doses, in August 2021.

Since then, several new variants of SARS-CoV-2 changed the potency of the antibody therapy, and it was eventually rendered ineffective against the Omicron variant. This resulted in the FDA amending the original emergency use authorisation to disallow its use in the US, in January 2022.

However, sales of the antibody continued in the rest of the world, where it is marketed by Roche, where it reported $613.2m in Q1, but none in the subsequent quarter.

The Project NexGen plan now provides Regeneron another chance to develop a prophylactic antibody against Covid-19, and this time with significantly more government funding. The US Department of Health and Human Services will cover upto 70% of the company’s costs to develop such an antibody, allowing for approximately a potential value of $326m in government funding.

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