While COVID-19 vaccination will reduce COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality, the learned immune response may vary between individuals. This means interventions such as monoclonal antibodies (mAB) will still be needed to prevent progression of COVID-19 illness. Monoclonal antibodies seek to mimic or enhance the natural immune system response against a pathogen and are often used in the care of patients with cancer or infection.
For viral infections, mABs are created by exposing a white blood cell to a particular viral protein, which is then cloned to mass produce antibodies to target that virus. For SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, IgG1 mABs target the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and block viral attachment and entry into cells.
The SARS-CoV-2 mABs bamlanivimab and etesevimab, and the REGN-COV2 combination (casirivimab + imdevimab) reduce nasopharyngeal viral burden plus clinical outcomes including future emergency department visits and hospitalizations. Each received FDA Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for use in selected populations.
As of February 2021, there are over 60,000 new cases of COVID-19 diagnosed daily in the US, with over 7000 daily COVID-19 related hospital admissions. Although case volumes are currently declining, COVID-19 remains a significant public health threat.
Despite the EUAs, the clinical use of mABs is low due in part to lack of patient access, complexities in drug allocation, and lack of knowledge among providers are contributing factors. Further, the comparative effectiveness of different mABs is unknown and not yet directly studied. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently called for expanded access and clinical use of mABs, noting it is "critical to collect data and evaluate whether they are working as predicted". This evaluation seeks to determine their relative effects versus each other, starting with those governed by EUAs.
OPTIMISE-C19 is a quality improvement (QI) study, governed by approvals from both the UPMC QI committee and the University of Pittsburgh IRB. Currently, mAB therapy is approved for use under EUA issued by the FDA. There are no data on the relative benefits of one mAB versus any other. mABs are ordered by UPMC physicians as a generic referral order and the order is filled by UPMC pharmacy via therapeutic interchange. The selection of mABs available within pharmacy is overseen by the UPMC pharmacy and therapeutics committee. OPTIMISE-C19 provides the therapeutic interchange via random allocation. The UPMC Quality Improvement Committee approved the OPTIMISE-C19 study, including the random therapeutic interchange. The University of Pittsburgh IRB considered the randomized therapeutic interchange to be quality improvement and approved the additional data collection and analyses.
Patients provide verbal consent to receive mAB therapy. UPMC requires physicians to provide and review with patients the EUA Fact Sheet for each mAB, and explain that the patient could receive any of the EUA-governed mABs. As per EUA requirements, physicians discuss the risks and benefits of mABs with patients, and patients consent to receive a mAB as part of routine care, should they desire mAB treatment. Patients are told which mAB they are receiving, and physicians and patients can agree to the assigned mAB or request a specific mAB. It is the treating physicians' and patients' choice to accept the assigned mAB or not. The QI committee considered these steps to represent adequate consent to participate. The IRB considered that the provision of mAB therapy therefore fell under quality improvement and only the additional data collection and analyses represented research. The IRB waived any additional consent requirements.
