AstraZeneca treatment effective against Omicron COVID-19 variant

March 21 (UPI) -- AstraZeneca's COVID-19 antibody combination Evusheld is effective against the highly contagious Omicron BA.1 and BA.1.1 variants of COVID-19, the company said Monday.

Preclinical authentic live virus data from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis demonstrated AstraZeneca's Evusheld drug also remains effective against the more recent BA.2 subvariant, the British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical company said in a news release.

The drug is a combination of two long-acting antibodies derived from B-cells donated by patients recovering from COVID-19.

"These important data show that Evusheld reduced viral burden and limited inflammation caused by Omicron," AstraZeneca Vice President John Perez in a statement. "The findings further support Evusheld as a potential important option to help protect vulnerable patients such as the immunocompromised who could face poor outcomes if they were to become infected with COVID-19."

The study conducted on mice demonstrated Evusheld significantly reduced the viral burden and limited inflammation in the lungs for all three sub-variants, the company said.

"These new in vivo mouse model data confirm previous in vitro neutralization activity results for Evusheld against Omicron," Michael Diamond, a professor of microbiology, pathology and immunology at Washington University, said in the statement. "The findings demonstrate that Evusheld was effective at protecting against infection in the lungs, a critical disease site for severe COVID-19, across all Omicron subvariants tested."

In December, Evusheld was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Emergency Use Authorization in the United States.

In February, the FDA revised the emergency use authorization for Evusheld, changing its initial dose for the authorized use as a prevention against COVID-19 in certain cases.

Evusheld is also approved as a treatment for COVID-19 in several other countries.