Lilly to Supply More COVID Combo Therapy to Europe
(Provided Photo/Eli Lilly and Co.)
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE: LLY) has inked a Joint Procurement Agreement with the European Commission to supply up to 220,000 doses of two COVID-19 antibody therapies. The company says the deal allows countries in the European Union and European Economic Area to purchase bamlanivimab and etesevimab directly from Lilly.
The combination therapy, Lilly says, can be used to treat patients 12 years of age and older who do not require supplemental oxygen for COVID-19 and who are at increased risk of progressing to severe COVID-19.
“Bamlanivimab and etesevimab have played an important role in the fight against COVID-19, helping hundreds of thousands of patients globally,” Alfonso Zulueta, president of Lilly International, said in a news release. “Lilly is pleased to have reached this agreement with the European Commission which opens the door for many European countries to access this life-saving treatment option for patients with COVID-19.”
The combination therapy received an Emergency Use Authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in February. The following month, the European Medicines Agency’s Commitee for Medicinal Products for Human Use issued a scientific opinion supporting the use of the therapies as a treatment for COVID.
Lilly says a number of European countries have previously ordered the combination therapy in the first half of the year and still have inventory on hand. The new agreement provides access to additional doses, if needed.
The agreement comes less than a week after Lilly announced the U.S. government had purchased 388,000 additional doses of etesevimab, to be used in conjunction with bamlanivimab. Late last month, Lilly said it had resumed shipments of the therapies after pausing them to determined their efficacy against the Delta variant of COVID-19.