As­traZeneca gets a $500M an­ti­body con­tract, yet key ques­tions still loom for Trump's new fa­vorite treat­ment

As Pres­i­dent Trump touts the sup­posed ‘mir­a­cle‘ ef­fects of Re­gen­eron’s an­ti­body treat­ments on Twit­ter and Fox News, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is up­ping its in­vest­ment in the tech­nol­o­gy, putting a half bil­lion dol­lars be­hind a third com­pa­ny de­vel­op­ing an­ti­bod­ies to fight Covid-19.

HHS an­nounced Fri­day they would spend $486 mil­lion to help As­traZeneca de­vel­op their mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body cock­tail. Al­though the agency touts the po­ten­tial of the cock­tail, known as AZD7442, to both treat and pre­vent Covid-19, the gov­ern­ment ap­pears to be valu­ing it pri­mar­i­ly for its po­ten­tial as pre­ven­tion.

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