The development of the antibody cocktail used to treat President Donald Trump for Covid-19 — which he heralded as a cure for the disease — was funded largely by the U.S.

The biopharmaceutical company Regeneron, led by the two highest paid executives in the industry, received hundreds of millions in public funds during the research and development of the antibody therapy, and now stands to make a killing from its potentially lifesaving treatment.

In January, as the new coronavirus began spreading in the U.S., Regeneron struck an agreement with a division of Department of Health and Human Services known as the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, to receive up to $81 million for work on antibodies that would prevent Covid-19 from infecting cells by attaching to the spikes on its surface. The two antibodies Regeneron chose were developed using cell lines that were derived from the kidney tissue of an aborted fetus.

The January contract, of which only a heavily redacted version has been been made public, expanded upon an existing $284 million agreement Regeneron had with BARDA to research and develop antibodies for a variety of pathogens.

According to the company’s filings with the Security and Exchange Commission, the January agreement committed the government to pay for 80 percent of the cost of developing antibodies to combat Covid-19.

While the July agreement was made “on behalf of” the Department of Defense and an entity called the Medical CBRN Defense Consortium, according to the SEC filing, it was done through a third party called Advanced Technologies International, Inc. Because it is a nongovernmental entity, Advanced Technologies International is not subject to public records laws, which will make it difficult or impossible for the public to review the contract or its terms.

Advanced Technologies International has awarded more than $6 billion in contracts to companies through the administration’s vaccine mobilization program Operation Warp Speed, including Novavax, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, as NPR recently reported.

In an emailed statement, Regeneron said that its July agreement for the antibody cocktail went through Advanced Technologies International because “this was the preferred contract structure of the U.S.

Advanced Technologies International and the Medical CBRN Defense Consortium did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

But some close watchers of federal contracting dismiss the idea that the government used Advanced Technologies International because of the need for expedience during the pandemic.

Asked whether the Department of Defense is using Advanced Technologies International to avoid oversight, Frey responded “absolutely not.” But the Pentagon official declined to provide a copy of the agreement or comment on whether it contains any language pertaining to the affordability of the antibody cocktail.

In September, Regeneron released results of a trial of 275 nonhospitalized Covid-19 patients treated with its combination of antibodies.

The president was also reportedly given the widely available steroid dexamethasone and remdesivir, an antiviral drug that has been shown to reduce the time patients are hospitalized with Covid-19 but is not yet widely available to the public.

And in 2017, when Regeneron received its first federal funding for antibody treatments, Schleifer ranked second to Yancopoulis, who received $268 million in direct compensation — more than triple the pay any pharmaceutical company executive received that year and the most any pharmaceutical executive has made before or since.

Hours after the president tweeted the video, in which he said that emergency use authorization for the antibody cocktail was “all set,” Regeneron applied for the fast tracking, which would make the treatment available before it has been thoroughly vetted.

And although Regeneron has committed to selling some of the antibodies to the government, which in turn is obligated to distribute them “to the American people at no cost,” according to the government’s July 6 agreement, that deal applies only to “a fixed number of bulk lots.” After that, the pricing is up to the company — a prospect that frightens some economists.

Monoclonal antibodies are already among the most expensive pharmaceutical products available.

While Trump promised that the government would provide the antibody cocktail to Americans for free, drug pricing efforts say that many people probably won’t have access to the treatment at all, let alone at an affordable price.

pharmaceutical system, he said the maker of the antibody cocktail epitomizes the administration’s failure to hold companies accountable during the pandemic.

“The story of Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment is the story of president Trump’s billionaire buddy who received massive taxpayer subsidies to work on a coronavirus treatment with no strings attached,” said Rizvi, who pointed out that Regeneron will be able to both set high prices for the tax-payer funded treatment and market it exclusively

Meanwhile, as the virus continues to surge across the country, Regeneron has said that it is continuing to produce its monoclonal antibodies and will do its best to make the treatment available to everyone

“We know our medicines only help if people can access them, and, as such, we are working hard to develop and scale-up a completely novel treatment for COVID-19 that is accessible to the people who need it.”