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Gilead’s COVID-19 Treatment Effective Against Variants of Concern
In other COVID news, Moderna supplies 10.8-million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to Colombia and the Siemens Healthineers COVID-19 antigen self-test is now available in the US.
Gilead recently announced that its COVID-19 treatment, remdesivir, retained antiviral in vitro activity against variants of concern, including Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron.
Researchers studied two methods to understand the susceptibility of ten major SARS-CoV-2 variants to remdesivir. Study results showed antiviral activity of remdesivir against the variants and an early ancestral A lineage isolate detected in Seattle, WA (WA1 strain).
Both the Delta and Omicron variants remained fully susceptive to remdesivir.
Overall study results demonstrated that remdesivir remained active against all major variants isolated over the past two years, consistent with in vitro studies from Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, and the US.
“These results provide evidence of the consistent and durable antiviral activity of remdesivir across known variants that have emerged throughout the pandemic, including Omicron and support its continued use for the treatment of COVID-19 for current SARS-CoV-2 variants,” Tomas Cihlar, senior vice president of virology research at Gilead, said in the announcement.
“Gilead continuously evaluates the activity of Veklury against viral variants,” Cihlar continued.
In October 2020, FDA approved remdesivir as the first COVID-19 treatment. And in September 2021, a three-day course of the drug elicited an 87 percent reduction in risk for the composite primary endpoint of COVID-19 related hospitalizations or all-cause death by Day 28.
Colombia Receives 10.8M Doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine
Moderna recently supplied 10.8 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to Colombia for distribution across the country.
Under the terms of the agreement, Moderna will deliver one million doses in the first quarter of 2022, six million doses in the second quarter of 2022, and 3.8 million doses in the third quarter of 2022. The doses are in addition to the 10 million doses supplied to Colombia last year.
“We thank the government of Colombia for their continued collaboration, support, and trust in our COVID-19 vaccine,” Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, said in the announcement. “COVID-19 vaccines continue to be our best tools in helping to end the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In Latin America, Moderna announced a new supply agreement with the government of Chile for two million doses of its COVID-19 booster vaccine or an updated booster candidate. The company will start delivering doses later this month, pending local emergency authorization.
Siemens Healthineers COVID-19 Antigen Self-Test Available in US
Siemens Healthineers recently announced the availability of its CLINITEST Rapid COVID-19 Antigen Self-Test in the US market.
The test uses a nasal swab to provide accurate COVID-19 test results, including for the Omicron and Delta variants, in 15 minutes. The test comes is a five-test-per-box configuration and is approved for unsupervised self-testing by individuals 14 years of age and older. Adults can also collect samples from kids aged two to 13, with or without symptoms.
“Since receiving Emergency Use Authorization for the CLINITEST Rapid COVID-19 Antigen Self-Test in December, we’ve worked tirelessly to leverage every pathway to bring the tests to the public as quickly as possible,” Jennifer Zinn, executive vice president and head of diagnostics at Siemens Healthineers, said in the announcement.
“This is in addition to the tremendous efforts we’ve successfully undertaken to make these tests widely available in Europe,” Zinn continued.
Last month, the US chose Siemens Healthineers as a test supplier to support the government’s efforts to ship tests directly to households. The company is committed to making tens of millions of tests available over the next month.
