More than 18 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still very few drugs authorized by the FDA to treat the virus. Just one drug, remdesivir, has gained full FDA approval as a treatment for COVID-19.

Becker’s asked physicians from top health systems which medications they’re using most frequently to treat their COVID-19 patients, which they’re avoiding and which have been most effective.

Two senior leaders in the US Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine review office are stepping down, even as the agency works toward high-profile decisions around Covid-19 vaccine approvals, authorizations for younger children and booster shots.

The retirements of Dr. Marion Gruber, director of the Office of Vaccines Research and Review at FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, and Dr. Philip Krause, deputy director of the office, were announced in an internal agency email sent on Tuesday and shared with CNN by the FDA.

In the email, CBER Director Dr. Peter Marks said Gruber will retire on October 31 and Krause is leaving in November. Marks thanked Gruber for her leadership throughout efforts to authorize and approve Covid-19 vaccines, and Krause for serving in a “key role in our interactions to address critical vaccine-related issues with our public health counterparts around the world.”

Trial also will test pausing immunosuppressive medication to improve antibody response.

The National Institutes of Health has begun a clinical trial to assess the antibody response to an extra dose of an authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccine in people with autoimmune disease who did not respond to an original COVID-19 vaccine regimen. The trial also will investigate whether pausing immunosuppressive therapy for autoimmune disease improves the antibody response to an extra dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in this population. The Phase 2 trial is sponsored and funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of NIH, and is being conducted by the NIAID-funded Autoimmunity Centers of Excellence.

“Many people who have an autoimmune disease that requires immunosuppressive therapy have had a poor immune response to the authorized and approved COVID-19 vaccines, placing these individuals at high risk for the disease,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “We are determined to find ways to elicit a protective immune response to the vaccines in this population. This new study is an important step in that direction.”