The tests also confirm what other teams of researchers have found: vaccines probably protect people against the variant seen for the first time in Britain and known as B.1.1.7, and one seen for the first time in South Africa and called B.1.135. However, the mutations in B.1.135 allow the virus to prevent immune responses a little more, the team, led by Dr. David Ho of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Columbia University, reported in a pre-printed report – one still not published in a peer-reviewed journal.
“As we expected, the virus continues to mutate and this data shows REGEN-COV’s continued ability to neutralize emerging strains, further validating our multi-antibody cocktail approach to infectious diseases,” said Regeneron President Dr. George Yancopoulos, in a statement.
“With two complementary antibodies in a therapeutic, even if one has reduced potency, the risk of the cocktail losing its effectiveness is significantly reduced, since the virus would need to mutate in several different places to escape both antibodies.”
The mutations in B.1.1.7 had small effects, if any. But one particular mutation, in B.1.135, reduced the effectiveness of the immune response in convalescent plasma, in both vaccines, of one of Regeneron’s antibodies and Lilly’s antibody, they said.
The same mutation is found in a variant seen for the first time in Brazil.
“Mutationally, this virus is traveling in a direction that could ultimately lead us to escape our current therapeutic and prophylactic interventions aimed at the viral peak,” wrote Ho’s team.
“If the widespread spread of the virus continues and more critical mutations accumulate, then we can be condemned to pursue the continuously evolving SARS-CoV-2, as we have been doing for a long time with the flu virus.”
That means the world must vaccinate people more quickly and in the meantime, double measures to prevent the spread of the virus, such as wearing a mask, they said.