Covid variants

New preclinical authentic ‘live’ virus data from Washington University School of Medicine demonstrated that Evusheld (tixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab) retains potent neutralising activity against the emerging and highly transmissible Omicron SARS-CoV-2 BA.2 subvariant.1 The data also showed that Evusheld retains activity against Omicron BA.1 and BA.1.1.1. The findings were reported online on bioRxiv.  The data  In […]

Moderna has dosed the first participant in a Phase II study of the company’s Omicron-specific booster candidate (mRNA-1273.529). Additionally, Moderna announced the publication of neutralising antibody data against the Omicron variant six months following a booster dose in The New England Journal of Medicine.   The mRNA-1273.529 trial  This extension of an earlier study will evaluate the immunogenicity, safety, and reactogenicity of […]

A third ‘booster’ dose of Covid-19 vaccine successfully raises antibody levels that neutralise the Omicron variant, according to laboratory findings from the Francis Crick Institute and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, published as a Research letter in The Lancet.   The results  Researchers found that antibodies generated in people who had received only two doses of either the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine or […]

Revelar Biotherapeutics and Twist Bioscience have announced that RBT-0813 binds to and neutralises the Omicron and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 in live virus studies.   What is RBT-0813?  RBT-0813 is a bispecific antibody discovered by Twist Biopharma and licensed to Revelar Biotherapeutics that targets epitopes on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Revelar has continued to advance preclinical development of RBT-0813 to submit an Investigational […]

Marinomed Biotech, an Austrian biotech company, has announced results of the antiviral efficacy of iota-carrageenan (Carragelose) against the original SARS-CoV-2 strain and variants of concern (VOC), including the Delta variant. This has been published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.   Collaboration   The peer-reviewed study is the result of a collaboration between virologists at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität […]

According to new results published as a correspondence in Cancer Cell, nearly 100% of cancer patients with solid tumours have antibodies effective against the Delta variant after a third dose of Covid-19 vaccine.  What does this mean?  The new findings highlight a proportion of patients with blood cancers who still have undetectable antibody levels against Delta after three doses, […]

New research from Qatar, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has found that the natural immunity from prior infection of Covid-19 has a 92% efficacy against reinfection of the Beta variant, and a 98% efficacy against reinfection of the Alpha variant.   The study  The study looked at a national cohort of Qataris, comparing […]

Researchers from the University of Oxford have analysed the impact of the Omicron Covid-19 variant of concern on one of the immune responses generated by vaccination.  The study  Using blood samples from individuals who had previously received two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines as part of the Com-COV study, and a live virus isolate, they […]

PerkinElmer has announced the research use only (RUO) launch of the NEXTFLEX Variant-Seq SARS-CoV-2 Kit v2 to accelerate the detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants, which will allow laboratories to increase sequencing throughput and make reliable variant identifications.  What is NEXTFLEX?   Using positive SARS-CoV-2 samples, the NEXTFLEX Variant-Seq SARS-CoV-2 Kit v2 detects mutations associated with all SARS-CoV-2 […]