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MIAMI (CBSMiami/CNN) – Florida is shutting down its monoclonal antibody treatment sites after the Food and Drug Administration moved to revoke emergency authorization for treatments made by Eli Lilly (bamlanivimab and etesevimab, administered together) and Regeneron (REGEN-COV, or casirivimab and imdevimab), because data showed they are “highly unlikely to be active against the Omicron variant.”
Omicron account for more than 99 percent of Covid-19 cases in the US as of January 15, the FDA said, noting restricting the authorization for treatments that aren’t effective against the variant “avoids exposing patients to side effects which can be potentially serious.”
The regulatory move was expected because both drugmakers had said the infusion drugs are less able to target Omicron due to its mutations.
Tuesday morning during a news conference in Crawfordville, Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed the agency for its decision.
“What we would say in Florida is we have had people use it and we’ve had good results. It’s not 100 percent, we understand that, but you also don’t even know when someone goes in whether it’s Omicron or still the Delta. Yes, mostly in Florida it’s going to be Omicron at this point. But it’s really a reckless decision,” he said.
DeSantis has made monoclonal antibodies a cornerstone of his response to surges of coronavirus cases, often pushing the treatment more vigorously than vaccines.
“People have a right to access these treatments, and to revoke it on this basis is just fundamentally wrong and we’re going to fight back,” DeSantis said
Beginning last summer, the governor introduced new clinics where individuals could receive the treatment at the onset of symptoms or exposure to someone with Covid-19.
Earlier this month, amid a record-breaking surge of COVID-19 cases, DeSantis assailed the Biden administration for pausing shipments of the monoclonal antibodies and pushed for the treatment to remain widely available.
On January 7, DeSantis said he’d secured 15,000 doses of Regeneron’s antibody treatment for the state, despite the pharmaceutical company saying in December its REGEN-COV antibodies “have diminished potency against Omicron.”
GlaxoSmithKline’s monoclonal antibody, sotrovimab, is the only version of the treatment that appears to work against Omicron, the FDA said last month.
(©2022 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company, contributed to this report.)