Science’
s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.
A study in U.S. nursing homes has shown for the first time that monoclonal antibodies, mass-produced in a laboratory, can protect people from developing symptomatic COVID-19. Their manufacturer, Eli Lilly, hopes these antibodies will provide an additional way to protect people at risk of serious disease from the pandemic coronavirus. But given the success of COVID-19 vaccines and their increasing availability, it’s not clear that the expensive and somewhat cumbersome intervention will be widely used.
Both Eli Lilly’s monoclonal antibody and a similar two-antibody cocktail from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals famously used to treat former U.S. President Donald Trump in October 2020 have already received emergency use authorization (EUA) as a therapeutic for those who have become infected and are at high risk of developing severe COVID-19. So far, they are not widely used because the