SRUK supports the call on the UK Government to provide Evusheld - a preventative antibody treatment for COVID-19

In March 2022, Evusheld was licensed by the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for use in the UK. Evusheld is a pre-exposure antibody treatment, made by AstraZeneca, and is designed to prevent patients from contracting COVID-19 if they are exposed to the virus. This means that it has the potential to provide preventative protection for those who are still at high risk from COVID because they haven’t mounted a proper response to the vaccine.

As such, SRUK is supporting the call for the UK Government to procure and provide Evusheld to patients in the UK and set out a clear plan for its provision. We are also asking for our community to help by writing to their MP using the template letter below, and by signing the ‘Fund Evusheld’ UK Government petition which can be found here.

Click here to find your MP.

What is Evusheld?

Evusheld combines two different types of antibodies called tixagevimab and cilgavimab, and in the UK-based ‘PROVENT’ trial the treatment reduced the risk of developing a symptomatic COVID-19 infection by 77%. This was amongst a cohort in which 3/4 of patients had health conditions which put them at high risk from the virus. After having the treatment, nobody involved in the trial became seriously unwell as a result of COVID-19. As such, it’s been shown that Evusheld could help protect the large number of people in the UK that have had a limited response to COVID vaccination due to conditions which affect the immune system.

Why is Evusheld important for the SRUK community?

There are at least 500,000 people in the UK that are immunocompromised or immunosuppressed, and this includes many people living with scleroderma and other autoimmune conditions, some of which are known to have a link to Raynaud’s. Because scleroderma is an autoimmune disease, many people living with the condition are immunosuppressed as a result of medication that they need to take to prevent the condition from progressing. This means that they may not have been able to mount a strong response to the vaccine, meaning that they remain at high risk from a COVID infection.

Evusheld therefore has the capacity to offer this group protection against the virus which they have not yet been offered by the vaccine. This could allow many people to stop shielding and begin the transition to living with COVID, as others have been able to do over the last year. This means that Evusheld has the potential to directly improve the quality of life of many people within the scleroderma patient community, if it is made available to the public by the UK Government.

Why isn’t Evusheld available in the UK?

Evusheld is already available in some parts of the United States, Canada, France, and Israel. However, the treatment is still not available to any patients in the UK. Despite its approval by the MHRA, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has delayed the procurement and provision of Evusheld until the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has conducted laboratory research into its effectiveness against the Omicron variant.

Whilst the clinical data on the effectiveness of Evusheld was recorded before the Omicron variant emerged, there is growing evidence that the treatment is effective in neutralising Omicron, and we already know that Evusheld is effective against other variants. Furthermore, the timeline that the DHSC and UKHSA has implemented for this research, and when a decision on Evusheld will be made, remains unclear. In the meantime, the delay in the provision of Evusheld to patients in the UK means that vulnerable people who haven’t responded to vaccines are left at greater risk of becoming seriously unwell or dying as a result of COVID-19.

What are SRUK doing?

SRUK are supporting the call for the UK Government to procure Evusheld and provide it to patients in the UK, and to set out a clear plan and timeline for testing Evusheld and deciding on whether it will be made available. Furthermore, SRUK also supports the call on the Government to set out a plan for when Evusheld will be procured and made available, if the DHSC does decide that it will be provided after UKHSA testing.

As part of our commitment to support the Evusheld campaign, we have signed an open letter to Steve Barclay, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, calling for the procurement of Evusheld alongside a number of other medical charities, including Blood Cancer UK, Kidney Care UK and Immunodeficiency UK. We are also asking for our community’s support with the campaign.

What can you do to help?

You can find a template letter to write to your MP about Evusheld on this page, and we hope that letters from our patient community will make it clear that this is an important issue for many people living with scleroderma and other autoimmune conditions. You can also sign a UK Government petition to fund Evusheld on this page, which already has over 15,000 signatures.