A new Covid therapy has been approved in France… This Friday January 7, 2022, the Haute Autorité de Santé announced in a release they have given early approval for the use of Xevudy, a promising synthesized antibody therapy that works against the Omicron variant, according to health authorities, and developed by the GSK drugmaker. A therapy that is well-timed as some drugs have been removed as they are not working against this new strain of the virus.
The molecule is based on the one used in the creation of Sotrovimab, another Covid therapy developed by the UK laboratory, and used in the United Kingdom. It joins Evusheld, another drug developed by AstraZeneca and approved by the HAS against the Omicron variant in the fight against the Covid epidemic in France.
Under what conditions is the therapy to be used? It applies to people over 12 years of age who have been just infected by the virus and considered likely to develop severe disease. It is a synthesized antibody-based therapy to give intravenously. “It is recommended to administrate it in the five days following the onset of symptoms”, the HAS explains in a release.
They continue specifying Xevudy “presents an action mechanism enabling to hope the same level of effectiveness on variants, including the Omicron variant”. The Haute Autorité de Santé concludes: “in vitro data suggest the same level of neutralizing activity of sotrovimab when other monoclonal antibodies’ available declines and even disappears”. Now we must wait for the definitive results of the ongoing study on this therapy only tested in vitro so far.
