GinsGlobal’s Healthcare Innovation (WELL) ETF’s single largest holding – Biotech giant Regeneron (6.5% weighting) – now expects to have a potential drug for COVID-19 ready to start human clinical trials within 2-3 months.
Human testing has already begun in Seattle the epicenter of US deaths from the virus.
The US FDA and CDC are providing major support to innovative biotech and gene sequencing health groups including a number of holdings in our Innovative Technology (ITEK) and Healthcare Innovation (WELL) ETFs.
- Regeneron has moved forward its time frame for having doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine and treatment ready for human testing.
- The approach, which was successful in creating a drug to treat Ebola, is to expose mice with genetically altered human-like immune systems to proteins in the virus so they create antibodies.
- Dr. George Yancopoulos, Regeneron’s co-founder, said health-care workers and others at high risk for the disease would likely get the vaccine first.
Biotech giant Regeneron said it aims to have doses of a potential drug for COVID-19 ready to start human clinical trials by early summer.
The approach involves creating antibodies to the virus that could be used to treat the disease and to prevent it, Regeneron said in a statement Tuesday.
“There are always so many moving parts, but … we’re hitting our best numbers, our best timelines, and things are going really well,” Dr. George Yancopoulos, Regeneron’s co-founder, president and chief scientific officer, said in a telephone interview Monday night.
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