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A COVID-19 treatment from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals that consists of a pair of monoclonal antibodies sometimes fails to bind to antigens produced by the concerning B.1.351 variant of SARS-CoV-2, according to a preprint posted February 19 to bioRxiv.
In lab experiments, the researchers found that nine times fewer antibodies within the cocktail bind to B.1.351’s antigens than to antigens from the most common circulating version of the virus. This means that a treatment for B.1.351 would need to be nine times as large to yield the same level of viral neutralization.
“It certainly raises a concern,” says Nathaniel (Ned) Landau, a microbiologist at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine and the lead author of the study. “When the titer goes down ninefold, it could make it not work as well.” Given that his study was conducted in vitro, Landau notes that the only way to ...
