At a Wisconsin rally earlier this week, Donald Trump declared that his COVID-19 treatment would be everyone’s treatment. For free. “We're gonna make what I had, available to everybody, free,” said Trump. “The antibodies, I think the antibodies are the best thing, we're gonna make it free.”
The antibodies Trump was talking about were a “cocktail” of two synthetic antibodies from biotech firm Regeneron. On Tuesday, that drug was approved by the FDA and will be marketed under the name Inmazeb … for the treatment of Ebola. Still, the drug does exist, and has passed stringent FDA review. That’s all good.
However, none of that makes what Trump said anything less than a huge lie. First of all, the antibody treatment is in extremely short supply. Only a handful of patients have received Inmazeb outside of a trial, and what little is available is desperately needed to handle that other disease, the one for which it’s been approved. The one that makes people bleed from their eyes. Right now, Regeneron reports they have about 50,000 doses, Meaning that they are about 12,000 short of treating the number of Americans diagnosed with COVID-19 on Tuesday alone.
And there are a couple of other problems. First, the treatment is going to be extremely expensive. Second, what Trump actually got was enough to treat four patients.
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The usual dosage of Inmazeb is around 2 milligrams. Trump got 8. Why did Trump get such a massive dose? Apparently for the same reason that Trump got everything else.
When Donald Trump began displaying symptoms of COVID-19, personal physician Sean Conley reacted with his usual subtlety and restraint by getting Trump any treatment he wanted and treating him with a kitchen sink approach that did not at all adhere to standards of care. In addition to getting the anti-viral drug Remdesivir—the effectiveness of which remains in doubt after a pair of duelling studies—and steroids that are usually reserved for someone actively getting breathing assistance, Trump also got a quadruple dose of Regeneron’s cocktail. Because.
It should be noted that, in addition to the better than 9 million active cases of COVID-19 which might benefit from treatment, 2020 has also seen an actual outbreak of Ebola in Congo. Since Ebola has a fatality rate up to 90% … it might be nice to share some treatment.
As far as making it available, the U.S. government actually paid Regenron $450 million in July with a target of manufacturing 300,000 doses. That’s $1,500 a dose. Or $6,000 for the amount that Trump received. The 300,000 doses are expected to be available some time this fall. At which point there will still be enough to treat less than one week’s worth of people coming down with COVID-19. The mere fact that we don’t have anywhere close to enough to give these drugs to everyone is just part of the picture. Inmazeb isn’t a pill, or even a shot. It’s given intravenously, so it requires the patient to spend some time in a hospital or clinic. That should also be factored in to any estimate of cost.
Both Inmazeb, and a similar treatment from Eli Lilly (which is the one that was given to the also oddly lucky Chris Christie) show tremendous promise. In some studies, they’ve reduced the number of people moving from mild or moderate symptoms to more severe conditions by over 80%. Unlike other proposed treatments, their effect is not marginal or likely to vanish in the next study.
But to be effective, the treatment needs to be administered very early in the course of the illness. That means that the best possible situation would be to genuinely give such antibody treatments to everyone infected. That’s not going to happen by producing more drugs. It has to happen by reducing the number of people who need them.
Source: Daily Kos
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