Swiss pharma giant Roche has announced promising results from clinical trials of an anti-COVID cocktail developed with US biotech firm Regeneron. The results of the Phase 3 trial showed that the combination of the antibodies casirivimab and imdevimab "reduced hospitalisation or death by 70% in non-hospitalised patients with COVID-19," it said in a statement.

For our comprehensive coverage and latest updates on COVID-19 click here.

The cocktail also "significantly shortened the duration of symptoms by four days," from 14 to 10.

Roche said the tests were carried out on people believed to be at higher risk of contracting a severe COVID-19 infection, typically the elderly and those with underlying serious health conditions.

Several pharmaceutical companies have been developing antibody treatments which prevent the virus from replicating in the body, in the hope of finding an effective treatment to go alongside vaccines to combat emerging variants.

Roche noted that the treatment is the only monoclonal antibody combination which remains effective when confronted with the major variants, some of which are more infectious and cause more serious illness.

Levi Garraway, Roche's chief medical officer and head of global product development, said "new infections continue to rise globally with over three million reported cases last week.

"This investigational antibody cocktail may offer hope as a potential new therapy to high-risk patients—particularly in light of recent evidence showing that casirivimab and imdevimab together retain activity against key emerging variants," Garraway said in a statement.

The results will now be passed on to regulators and submitted for peer review.

© 2021 AFP