MEMPHIS, Tenn — The federal government is taking over the now highly in demand monoclonal antibody treatments. The therapy is given to COVID patients so symptoms don’t become severe.
Southern states like Tennessee, Mississippi and Florida have used up about 70% of monoclonal drugs, according to the Washington Post.
It takes only around 25 minutes to receive the monoclonal antibodies, but like anything else when demand rises, the supply is affected.
“Over the last couple of weeks the demand for the monoclonal antibodies has continued to go up,” said Jillian Foster, the pharmacy director for Baptist Memorial Healthcare. “As that demand increase occurred perhaps it was getting to close to the supply that was available.”
Foster said the U.S. Dept. Of Health and Human Services contacted them about a new distribution process for antibody drugs which started this week.
Previously Baptist got its antibody supply from a drug wholesale company.
“The government sends an allotment to each state and then our health departments partner with us to be able to facilitate allocating that across the state,” explained Foster.
The Tennessee Department of Health stated they are communicating with providers to determine “how much product they need, how much they have on hand and then match that with available supply.”
“We’re monitoring the supply very closely,” Foster shared. “It does of course feel that we don’t have as much inventory or as any days out as we had in the past.”
Foster said what’s encouraging is over the last week admitted COVID patients, COVID testing and monoclonal antibody volumes in the Baptist system have gone down slightly.
“While we of course have seen the supply not as readily available, we’ve been really thankful to still be able to treat as many patients as have come to us,” said Foster.