FDA authorizes antibody treatment to prevent COVID after exposure

• The FDA's expanded authorization means REGEN-COV can be administered as an injection. The first dose would need to be injected within 96 hours of exposure.
• People who qualify for its use must be unvaccinated or immunocompromised, at high risk of severe infection and in close contact with someone who tested positive.
• Clinical trials show the treatment can reduce the risk of developing symptoms by more than 30%. It's been shown to prevent the need for emergency room visits and hospitalization.

What they're saying: "It’s a race between your ability to make an antibody to protect your lungs and the rest of your body and the virus," Myron Cohen, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and one of the investigators behind the study of COVID antibodies, told NBC News.

• "And if you’re likely to lose the race, you’re the person for whom these antibody drugs are appropriate."
• It will help people who don't respond well to vaccines or don't make antibodies themselves, according to Ghady Haidar, a transplant infectious diseases physician at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.