The president of Regeneron, George Yancopoulos, MD, PhD, and his family received special access to COVID-19 testing last year when testing was very limited in New York, The New York Times reported.
The drugmaker reportedly requested COVID-19 tests from the state of New York for Dr. Yancopoulos and his family after a "member of his household became infected with COVID-19," a Regeneron spokesperson told the Times March 25.
State officials granted the request and came to Dr. Yancopoulos' home to test him and his family in March 2020. It wasn't clear who in the state government Dr. Yancopoulos reached out to with the request, the Times reported.
The test samples were rushed by state troopers to Wadsworth Center, a state-run lab in Albany, and lab staff were instructed to process the tests immediately, two people with knowledge of the effort told the Times.
The tests given to Regeneron's president and his family are the first known examples of New York offering tests to someone with business interests in the state, the Times reported. Regeneron has a long history of investments in the state, according to the Times. The state's development agency had also granted Regeneron up to $140 million in incentives in 2018 to expand its operations.
In April 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that Regeneron would make 500,000 COVID-19 testing kits and provide them free of charge to the state, the Times reported. Regeneron told the publication that Dr. Yancopoulos wasn't involved in the donation.
Read the full article here.
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