New preventive treatment against Covid! Immunocompromised people, who are at high risk of developing a severe form of Covid, may receive treatment with monoclonal antibodies. Ronapreve may in particular be prescribed to them if they are in contact, the High Authority for Health (HAS) announced on Friday.

The “immunocompromised patients who are not protected despite full vaccination” will benefit from a “early access authorization” Ronapreve (casirivimab and imdevimab), indicates the HAS. This authorization is granted for five months, with a reassessment “within a maximum period of two months”.

The HAS already recommends injecting three doses of vaccine to the patients concerned. But even with this precaution, “about 25% of people who are immunocompromised following a transplant or chronic lymphocytic leukemia still have no detectable antibodies (seronegative) after the third dose”, points to authority.

Preventive treatment

This new injection treatment, developed by the American biotech Regeneron in partnership with the Roche laboratory, combines two monoclonal antibodies directed specifically against the Spike protein of Sars-CoV-2. They work by preventing the virus from entering cells, thus fighting against its replication.

The Ronapreve can be used “in pre-exposure prophylaxis”, that is to say in case of contact with an infected person, for patients 12 years of age and over “non-responders or weakly responders” vaccination when they present a very high risk of a severe form of Covid.

It could also be offered in “pre-exposure”, that is to say in pure prevention, “every 4 weeks as long as there is a risk of being exposed to the virus”, but only to “non-responder patients”, that is to say not having developed antibodies at all, despite the precise vaccination of the HAS.

130,000 people affected

The ANSM explains that it had already issued a favorable opinion on wider access to this preventive use, to “all patients with poor response to complete vaccination”, Due to “the therapeutic dead end” in which these patients are found.

Severely immunocompromised people, such as those who have received an organ transplant and undergoing anti-rejection treatment, chronic dialysis patients or patients with certain cancers and inflammatory autoimmune diseases, have a very high risk of severe form of Covid and mortality in the event of infection.

“It is estimated that in France, 130,000 immunocompromised patients are non-responders to a complete vaccination schedule and therefore concerned by this treatment”, details the HAS.

“Self-contained” people

This partial authorization “will make it possible to collect efficiency data and then open” access “to those who have weak answers” vaccination, hopes Yvanie Caillé, one of the leaders of the association of kidney patients Renaloo.

The Ronapreve had been granted early access authorization since March and extended in June, but only for high-risk patients of severe form already infected with the coronavirus. However, according to a survey of 1,700 patients with kidney failure, dialysis patients and kidney transplant recipients, more than three-quarters (77%) continue to live in “self-containment” for fear of the virus.