White House says it’s turning down vaccine requests from other countries

While monoclonal antibodies are a “very fluid area of research,” many of these Covid-19 treatments show “really dramatic” results that help fight the disease, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday at the White House Covid-19 Response Team briefing.

Fauci referenced a number of recent studies that showed how much help these treatments offer Covid-19 patients early in the course of their disease. They are some of the only treatments authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat non-hospitalized Covid-19 patients, and they are still underutilized.

“The reason why I point this out is that, recently, there has been a considerable amount of information regarding some of the monoclonal antibodies that are used in the prevention and treatment of Covid-19,” Fauci said.

Fauci pointed to recent studies that showed bamlanivimab and etesevimab, in combination, showed a 70% reduction in hospitalization and death in Covid-19 patients, according to a non-published study presented in at a conference this week.

Another study, conducted by Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline, showed patients who got that monoclonal therapy treatment had an 83% reduction in hospitalization or death. That treatment is still in clinical trials and has not yet been authorized.

Eli Lilly’s monoclonal therapy, which has been authorized by the FDA, showed an 80% reduction in moderate or severe disease at eight weeks in nursing home patients.

Regeneron’s antibody cocktail was 100% protective against symptomatic infection in the household setting, compared to placebo, and patients had a much lower viral load.

Fauci added that the treatments work for now. There is some concern that the variants may make the treatments less effective, but the companies continue to work on several updated cocktail approaches that scientists believe will work against the variants.