Sotrovimab
It is being used now, and is modifying the disease trajectory in the highest risk people - Paul Griffin
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Omicron overpowers key COVID antibody treatments in early tests
Sotrovimab is the best of the lot. Even so, the concentration required to halve viral replication was roughly three times higher for Omicron than for other coronavirus variants.
Although sotrovimab’s drop in potency against the new variant is significant, says Stuart Turville, a virologist at the Kirby Institute in Sydney, Australia, and a co-author of one of the preprints, “it’s nothing like what we saw for the others”. That might be because sotrovimab targets a part of the spike protein that is unchanged across many related coronaviruses.
Source: Max Kozlov, Excerpt from Omicron overpowers key COVID antibody treatments in early tests, Nature, December 21, 2021.
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Officials limit an antibody therapy, saying it’s ineffective against BA.2 variant of Omicron
Notably, sotrovimab maintained its effectiveness against the first form of Omicron that became dominant, the BA.1 lineage. But several lab studies in recent weeks have indicated the therapy loses much of its ability to neutralize the BA.2 lineage.
A Covid Treatment That Promises to Fight Off Omicron
GlaxoSmithKline says its antibody treatment sotrovimab is effective at preventing serious illness, even with the latest variant. But it’s still no substitute for vaccines.
Covid treatment improving as doctors learn to fight the disease and access new drugs
Coronavirus patients with high-risk comorbidities are being given a newly approved antibody drug, which limits the virus’s ability to replicate in the body
Early Treatment With Sotrovimab Decreases Risk for Progression to Severe COVID-19
“Given its in vitro activity against variants of concern, as well as its ability to neutralize other sarbecoviruses, we speculate that sotrovimab has the potential to remain therapeutically active even as SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve,” the investigators concluded.
Hospitals Scramble as Antibody Treatments Fail Against Omicron
Hospitals, drug companies and Biden administration officials are racing to address one of the Omicron variant’s biggest threats: Two of the three monoclonal antibody treatments that doctors have depended on to keep Covid-19 patients from becoming seriously ill do not appear to thwart the latest version of the coronavirus.
The F.D.A. authorizes another antibody treatment for high-risk Covid patients
The new treatment may offer an advantage as concerns rise about new virus variants that may evade some antibody drugs.
What is sotrovimab, the COVID drug the government has bought before being approved for use in Australia?
Sotrovimab works by binding to the spike protein on the outside of the COVID-19 virus. This is the same spike protein the body’s immune system is trained to recognise with the Pfizer COVID vaccine.
Omicron overpowers key COVID antibody treatments in early tests
Nearly all of the monoclonal antibodies used to prevent severe disease fail to stand up to the new variant, laboratory assays show.
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