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Regeneron ships experimental Ebola treatment to site of current outbreak

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. said it will ship its experimental treatment for Ebola virus to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where more than two dozen people are reported to have died of the infection.

The treatment, known as REGN-EB3 or REGN3470-3471-3479, showed signs of treating advanced Ebola virus disease and preventing death from the infection in three animal studies, Regeneron said, citing a publication from the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

REGN-EB3 will be provided within the World Health Organization's ethical framework for monitoring emergency use of treatments outside of clinical trials. The drug, which is under development and has not been fully evaluated by any regulatory authority, has received an orphan drug designation from both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency.

The WHO said May 29 that it expects the current outbreak of Ebola virus will probably result in 100 to 300 cases, and the UN agency is preparing five experimental drugs for use, officials said at a press conference in Geneva on May 29. Fifty-four cases of the virus have been reported, including 25 deaths, the WHO said in an updated posted on its website May 30.

"The unfortunate reemergence of Ebola has created an urgent need to deliver and administer investigational treatments with promising data, such as REGN-EB3," Neil Stahl, Regeneron's executive vice president of research and development, said in a statement. "We believe our antibodies have certain beneficial attributes for outbreak situations. For instance, our investigational treatment can be administered in a single dose and its stability means that it does not have to be stored frozen — very practical qualities in countries where these outbreaks have previously occurred."

Regeneron joins Merck & Co. Inc. and the U.S. National Institutes of Health in sending supplies of medicines or vaccines that could help fight the spread of the infection. Some 4,000 doses of Merck's experimental Ebola vaccine, dubbed V920, were shipped to the DRC and a second batch was on the way, WHO officials said May 18.

The NIH has sent 10 treatment regimens of an experimental Ebola drug it developed, dubbed mAb114, to the DRC and is prepared to send more if needed. The NIH's treatment is manufactured for clinical trials by AstraZeneca PLC.

In addition to those products, WHO and DRC authorities are also working together to bring other experimental therapies to the country, including Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc.'s ZMapp; Gilead Sciences Inc.'s remdesivir, or GS 5734; and FUJIFILM Holdings Corp.'s favipiravir, or Avigan.