Evusheld therapy gets FDA nod

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved for emergency use from Monday AstraZeneca’s Evusheld, a combination monoclonal antibody injection therapy that provides added protection against Covid-19 prior to virus exposure.

Effective upon being approved by the FDA, Evusheld is intended for use on individuals 12 years of age and older who are moderately- to severelyimmunocompromised or have a history of severe adverse reaction to Covid-19 vaccines, said Dr Paisal Dankhum, secretary-general of the FDA.

Evusheld is a combination of two long-acting antibodies, tixagevimab and cilgavimab, he said.

The therapy was registered in Thailand with the FDA after its emergency use was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration last December and by the European food and drug administration body this March, he said.

The Ministry of Public Health intends to use Evusheld mainly on three groups of patients whose immune systems are compromised, namely those requiring regular kidney dialysis, people undergoing an organ transplant and patients with other immune disorders.

As the antibody therapy provides protection against Covid-19 for up to six months, it is believed the provision of the therapy to these patients, particularly those with kidney ailments, is cost-effective, he said.

That is why the ministry decided to take a slice of the budget previously set aside for purchasing AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine to fund the procurement of Evusheld for these patients instead, he said.

In related news, a virus expert recommended that Thailand deal with Covid19 in the same way it does influenza in terms of vaccine management.

The coronavirus has become similar to the influenza virus whose dominant variant normally changes every year, said Dr Yong Poovorawan, head of the Centre of Excellence in Clinical Virology at Chulalongkorn University.