An­oth­er one bites the dust? FDA warns that emerg­ing Omi­cron sub­vari­ant could make Evusheld ob­so­lete

As­traZeneca’s Covid-19 pre-ex­po­sure pro­phy­lac­tic Evusheld has man­aged to re­main rel­e­vant for im­muno­com­pro­mised and oth­er pa­tients when many of its ther­a­peu­tic peers haven’t with each new Omi­cron sub­vari­ant.

But that win streak may slow­ly come to a close as the FDA told health­care providers on Mon­day that one of the emerg­ing sub­vari­ants, BA.4.6, ren­ders Evusheld al­most com­plete­ly use­less.

Na­tion­al­ly, BA.4.6 cur­rent­ly makes up about 13% of new cas­es, com­pared to just 1% of cas­es at the be­gin­ning of Ju­ly, ac­cord­ing to the CDC. But in some re­gions, like in Iowa, Mis­souri, Kansas and Ne­bras­ka, the BA.4.6 sub­vari­ant makes up more than 20% of all Covid-19 cas­es.

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