EU watchdog warns on waning effectiveness of antibody COVID drugs

10/12/2022 6:42

        The European Union's health regulator on Friday raised concerns over the decreasing effectiveness of COVID-19 antibody therapies to treat patients as emerging virus variants are challenging treatment approaches.
        
        The World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have both gone a step further and pulled recommendations for some monoclonal antibodies on the basis that Omicron and the variant's latest offshoots have likely rendered these options obsolete.
        
        Monoclonal antibodies are designed to neutralise the SARS-CoV-2 virus by binding to the spike protein on its surface, but the virus has been evolving, causing changes in this protein, affecting how the antibodies bind to them.