Antibody drugs could be key tools against Covid-19. But will they matter?

Along with efforts to try and find an effective vaccine for Covid-19, scientists at companies and universities have been investigating monoclonal antibodies — antibodies that have been engineered  — as therapies against SARS-CoV-2. The development process has gone at an extraordinary pace, and results from at least two different companies' antibody efforts are expected before the end of the year. But scaling up production of these drugs may be too slow to have a meaningful impact on the trajectory of the pandemic. “We may have missed a window to scale the manufacturing of antibody drugs that could have been an important bridge to a vaccine and a hedge in the event vaccines are delayed or don’t work,” former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb tells STAT's Adam Feuerstein and Matthew Herper. Read more here.