FDA cuts off use for As­traZeneca’s Covid-19 ther­a­py Evusheld

The FDA has stopped use of an­oth­er drug as a re­sult of the new coro­n­avirus vari­ants. On Thurs­day, the agency an­nounced that As­traZeneca’s an­ti­body com­bo Evusheld, which was an im­por­tant pre­ven­tion op­tion for many im­muno­com­pro­mised peo­ple and oth­ers, is no longer au­tho­rized.

The FDA said it made its de­ci­sion based on the fact that Evusheld works on few­er than 10% of cir­cu­lat­ing vari­ants.

Evusheld was ini­tial­ly giv­en emer­gency au­tho­riza­tion at the end of 2021. How­ev­er, as Omi­cron emerged, so did stud­ies that showed Evusheld might not work against the dom­i­nant Omi­cron strain. In Oc­to­ber, the FDA warned health­care providers that Evusheld was use­less against the Omi­cron sub­vari­ant BA.4.6. It fol­lowed that up with an­oth­er an­nounce­ment ear­li­er this month that it did not think Evusheld would work against the lat­est Omi­cron sub­vari­ant XBB.1.5.

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