Two Experimental Drugs Effective at Treating Ebola

REGN-EB3 and mAb114 reduced mortality in a clinical trial carried out during the ongoing outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo.

Written byCatherine Offord

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Two experimental treatments are effective at preventing death in Ebola patients, according to the preliminary results of a clinical trial described yesterday (August 12) by the National Institutes of Health.

The study, which monitored responses to four experimental treatments in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has now been halted to allow all trial participants to receive one of the two successful drugs, REGN-EB3 (made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals) and mAb114 (developed by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases).

“From now on, we will no longer say that Ebola is incurable,” Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the director general of the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale in DRC, which is overseeing the trial, said during a press conference, The Guardian reports. “These advances will help save thousands of lives.”

DRC’s most recent outbreak of Ebola began last August. It has so far killed nearly 1,900 people, and infected ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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