GlaxoSmithKline hopes to complete testing by year’s end to confirm whether the drug is effective against all the various mutations seen with the variant. Laboratory analysis of the antibody-based Covid-19 therapy that GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is developing with US partner Vir has indicated the drug is effective against the new Omicron variant, the British drugmaker has said.
GSK’s Thursday’s statement said that lab tests and a study on hamsters have demonstrated the sotrovimab antibody cocktail works against viruses that were bio-engineered to carry a number of hallmark mutations of the Omicron variant.
The two companies have been engineering so-called pseudoviruses that feature major coronavirus mutations across all suspicious variants that have emerged so far, and have run lab tests on their vulnerability to sotrovimab treatment.
An analysis of past tests has now yielded the preliminary clearance for the drug because Omicron’s main mutations have been found across a variety of previous variants.
“We’ve been carefully following every mutation that might be important,” said Herbert Virgin, Vir’s Chief Scientific Officer.
“With this new variant, the mutations that we have tested so far have no significant effect on sotrovimab,” he added.
The antibody is designed to latch on to the spike protein on the surface of the coronavirus, but Omicron has been found to have an unusually high number of mutations on that protein.
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