Covid-19 roundup: Al­ny­lam, Vir qui­et­ly de­pri­or­i­tize Covid-19 drug; Da­ta sug­gest As­traZeneca's vac­cine is on­ly 10.4% ef­fec­tive against new vari­ant

Vir Biotech­nol­o­gy’s biggest Covid-19 ef­fort has been their mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body, a bid they say has since proven ef­fec­tive, but it isn’t their on­ly ef­fort.

Last year, the in­fec­tious dis­ease biotech signed a deal with Al­ny­lam to co-de­vel­op an in­hal­able siR­NA drug that would slice up the virus­es in­side a pa­tient’s lungs. It would be in the clin­ic around Jan­u­ary, the part­ners said.

That nev­er hap­pened. The cal­en­dar turned with­out word, and at some point in the past few weeks, Vir re­moved the can­di­date from their pipeline on­line. A spokesper­son for Al­ny­lam said that they had seen “some ev­i­dence of ef­fi­ca­cy” in the lab, but not enough to bring it in­to the clin­ic. They of­fered no time­line for start­ing a tri­al.

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