Omicron may sideline two leading drugs against COVID-19

The two standard drugs doctors in the US have used to fight COVID-19 infections may not work against the new Omicron strain.

For more than a year, antibody drugs from Regeneron and Eli Lilly have been the go-to treatments for early COVID-19, thanks to their ability to head off severe disease and keep patients out of the hospital.

But both drugmakers recently warned that laboratory testing suggests their therapies will be much less potent against Omicron, which contains dozens of mutations that make it harder for antibodies to attack the virus. And while the companies say they can quickly develop new Omicron-targeting antibodies, those are not expected to launch for at least several months.

A third antibody from British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline appears to be the best positioned to fight Omicron.