Roche is a leading biopharmaceutical company that has spearheaded the fight against COVID-19 pandemic. Its phase II/III clinical trial showed positive results when the combination of casirivimab and imdevimab drugs were administered to hospitalized patients of COVID-19. Ronapreve is the combined medication of casirivimab and imdevimab drugs.
The testing of this medication was successful as it significantly decreased the viral load of COVID-19 patients who consumed it for seven days. These patients were seronegative, that is, they did not exhibit any antibody response. Moreover, they were treated with low-flow supplemental oxygen.
The pandemic of COVID-19 has been devastating, accounting for more than 4.7 million deaths across the world. Most hospitalized patients succumbed to COVID-19 disease. Although vaccines are quite effective in preventing hospitalization of patients, a significant number of patients still are not vaccinated and their infection escalates, requiring hospitalization. The growing burden of healthcare systems has been eased out on the knowing the results of the latest clinical trial: ronapreve is quite effective in reducing the viral load of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
In the phase III clinical trial, it was found that Ronapreve medication is safe and effective on COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized and non-hospitalized. Moreover, it is also effective as a preventive medication. The clinical trial of Ronapreve was double-blinded and randomized. The effect of placebo was also measured in this clinical trial.
Among the 1197 patients included in the trial, 530 patients did not receive supplemental oxygen whereas the remaining 667 patients received oxygen at a low-flow rate. Besides ronapreve medication, all the confirmed cases of COVID-19 received standard care in the form of corticosteroids (75%) and remdesivir (55%).
The companies Roche and Regeneron have jointly synthesized and tested the drug ronapreve, which is a combined form of two monoclonal antibodies, namely, casirivimab and imdevimab. The drug design of ronapreve is such that it blocks SARS-CoV-2, that is, the pathogenic virus that leads to the development of COVID-19.