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Is the Regeneron drug an example of the "monoclonal antibodies" that I keep hearing about?



Yes. Monoclonal antibodies are single antibodies that are produced at scale. Regeneron has 2 mABs that they mix to create a cocktail. Your immune system generated a polyclonal antibody response, which is to say it creates a multitude of different antibodies against the virus. If most aren’t great, that’s fine as long as one is good enough. If a few work together to neutralize the virus, that’s also fine. If you can identify one of those antibodies as especially good, you can then clone it and make a bunch of it artificially, hence “monoclonal”.




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