Sotrovimab medicine works against omicron variant, says manufacturer

The British drug manufacturer GSK announced on Tuesday (7) that the antibody-based therapy that it developed in partnership with the American group Vir Biotechnology to fight Covid-19 is effective against all mutations of the new omicron variant of the coronavirus, mentioning new data from studies that are at an early stage.

The data, which have not yet been released in a medical journal submitted for scientific review, demonstrate that the treatment developed by the companies, called sotrovimab, is effective against the 37 mutations identified so far in the spike protein of the coronavirus, the GSK announced in a statement.

In Brazil, sotrovimabe was approved by Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) in September this year.

Last week, other preclinical data showed that the treatment worked against key mutations in the omicron variant. Sotrovimab was designed to adhere to the spike protein present on the surface of the coronavirus, but studies have shown that the omicron variant has a high number of mutations in this protein.

“Preclinical data have demonstrated the potential of our monoclonal antibody to act effectively against the latest variant, omicron, and all the other worrying variants defined so far by the WHO (World Health Organization),” said Hal Barron , vice president of science at GSK.

GSK and Vir are developing pseudoviruses that carry the important coronavirus mutations in all the suspected variants that have emerged so far, and have conducted laboratory tests on their vulnerability to treatment with sotrovimab.

Translation by Paulo Migliacci