Regeneron not effective against Omicron

[disneysteve]

The healthcare system I work for has stopped offering monoclonal antibody therapy as of today. The current product has been found to be ineffective against Omicron which is the majority of cases now. I’ve heard that other places are also stopping treatment.

This is bad news for the unvaccinated who have been depending on the treatment to save them when they get sick. Hopefully word spreads and this will encourage at least some of them to finally get the vaccine.

It’s also bad for the immune compromised who either can’t get the vaccine or for whom it doesn’t work.

 

[pacergal]

oh, wow. I hadn't read the yet.
Good info, but bad news!

 

[HarveyS]

Can you please define "Our healthcare system". Is that local, state, national, regional,

 

[disneysteve]

Can you please define "Our healthcare system". Is that local, state, national, regional,

Sorry. I meant the system I work for. I fixed my post.

 

[tmm99]

I posted something about this about a week ago, although some things might have changed by then.

https://www.early-retirement.org/fo...ned-immune-systems-110460-48.html#post2705741

German researchers have found that COVID-19 therapies developed by Eli Lilly (LLY.N) and Regeneron (REGN.O) lose most of their effectiveness when exposed in laboratory tests to the Omicron variant of coronavirus, likely reducing treatment options if the new variant prevails.

Two groups of Germany based scientists separately found that protection from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) and Vir's (VIR.O) antibody cocktail Xevudy held up when exposed to Omicron in lab experiments, but that this was not the case for Lilly's antibodies, bamlanivimab and etesevimab, and the antibodies in Regeneron's Ronapreve drug.

 

[disneysteve]

Yes the Glaxo product seems to work but isn’t very available in the US currently. They’re hoping to get that and resume treatments.

 

[euro]

The healthcare system I work for has stopped offering monoclonal antibody therapy as of today. The current product has been found to be ineffective against Omicron which is the majority of cases now. I’ve heard that other places are also stopping treatment.

This is bad news for the unvaccinated who have been depending on the treatment to save them when they get sick. Hopefully word spreads and this will encourage at least some of them to finally get the vaccine.

It’s also bad for the immune compromised who either can’t get the vaccine or for whom it doesn’t work.

Yes, it is not good news, but it is sort of baked into the antibody treatment approach,, so not a big surprise. It was good to see the early cocktails (regeneron) hold up as long as they did, but now, they seem to be completely ineffective against Omicron. So, it absolutely makes sense to discontinue their use. As someone has said, the new GSK cocktail seems to work against Omicron, but will still take some time to approval in the US.

Fortunately, the new oral small molecule drugs from Pfizer and Merck are likely to be active against a broader variety of strains although once they are more widely used, resistance will likely become an issue there too. Those are the facts of life in virology - the trick is to always try to either respond with new drugs quickly to new major strains. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.
Best bet would be to get everyone vaccinated, of course, but alas......

 

[DaveInMi]

Sounds like a new treatment of lactoferrin and diphenhydramine (ingredients similar to those found in milk and benedryl) shows signs of preventing COVID virus replication and lessening the severity of COVID.
https://m.ufhealth.org/news/2021/tw...tiveness-against-covid-19-virus-early-testing
Will this be an approved treatment? Probably not since the pharmacutical companies won't profit from it.

 

[Sunset]

Sounds like a new treatment of lactoferrin and diphenhydramine (ingredients similar to those found in milk and benedryl) shows signs of preventing COVID virus replication and lessening the severity of COVID.
https://m.ufhealth.org/news/2021/tw...tiveness-against-covid-19-virus-early-testing
Will this be an approved treatment? Probably not since the pharmacutical companies won't profit from it.

I wonder if this is true that it helps.

I would think if this helps it would be approved because the cost to not use something is much more than the profit of some companies. If we solve this, more companies than simply drug companies will make more $$$.

As a last resort, pharmaceutical companies can combine the 2 drugs, and patent it. Then charge $3/pill

 

[euro]

Let’s be clear, these experiments are showing some antiviral activity in cell-based in vitro (I.e. in the test tube) assays. This is a very far cry from suppressing viral replication in a human. There are many compounds that will show positive signs of antiviral activity in vitro that never pan out in vivo (in live animals, let alone humans). This is true for Covid and for any other virus.
So, this is much more of a headline grab than even a glimmer of realistic hope. That said, there ARE now two pill treatments (close to approval or already approved in some countries) that do show efficacy against Covid. Not perfect, but they definitely work.
As I said earlier in another thread: I’m not trying to rain on parades - just trying to calm the hype.