US to buy 600,000 more doses of GSK-Vir's COVID-19 antibody therapy

The United States has agreed to buy 600,000 more doses of GSK and Vir Biotechnology's COVID-19 antibody therapy for an undisclosed sum, the drugmakers said on Tuesday, as the country bolsters its arsenal of treatments against the omicron coronavirus variant.

The additional doses of sotrovimab would be supplied to the United States in the first quarter of 2022, the companies said, taking the tally of doses secured by nations worldwide to roughly 1.7 million.

The US government in November had signed contracts worth about $1 billion for an unknown number of doses of the treatment, after saying it would control the distribution of sotrovimab.

Sotrovimab, given via an infusion, belongs to a class of medicines called monoclonal antibodies which are lab-generated compounds that mimic the body's natural defences. Tests have indicated that it works against the fast-spreading Omicron variant.

Scientists and governments are scrambling to bolster defences against Omicron with testing, shots, therapies, as the variant threatens to become dominant globally by evading protection offered by current vaccines and drugs.

GSK and Vir said they expect to produce roughly 2 million doses of sotrovimab globally in the first half of 2022.