Up­dat­ed: Weak­er Omi­cron vari­ant is great news for the world, but bad news for Covid-re­lat­ed clin­i­cal tri­als

As the world cheers over the weak­er (but still not quite mild) Omi­cron vari­ant, with its re­duced Covid-re­lat­ed hos­pi­tal­iza­tions and deaths when com­pared to the Delta vari­ant, spon­sors of clin­i­cal tri­als that de­pend on new Covid-19 cas­es to fin­ish their work are be­ing al­tered or halt­ed be­cause of Omi­cron.

SAB Ther­a­peu­tics said ear­ly Wednes­day that NIH has halt­ed en­roll­ment in its AC­TIV-2 Phase III tri­al for its po­ten­tial poly­clon­al an­ti­body due to low Omi­cron-re­lat­ed hos­pi­tal­iza­tion and death rates “that have made the cur­rent study de­sign sta­tis­ti­cal­ly un­work­able.”

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