Eli Lilly and Company announced an additional purchase by the U.S. government for its neutralizing antibody therapies authorized for emergency use as a treatment for COVID-19. As part of the agreement, Lilly will supply 388,000 doses of etesevimab to complement doses of bamlanivimab previously purchased by the U.S. government, with approximately 200,000 doses expected to ship Q3 2021 and the remaining to be shipped in Q4. This transaction is expected to generate approximately $330 million in revenue in the second half of 2021.
"The recent increase in COVID-19 cases has caused a substantial rise in the utilization of monoclonal antibody drugs, particularly in areas of the country with low vaccination rates," said Daniel Skovronsky, M.D., Ph.D., Lilly's chief scientific and medical officer, and president of Lilly Research Laboratories. "Lilly developed bamlanivimab and etesevimab for administration together, in anticipation of variants such as the highly contagious Delta variant, which currently accounts for more than 98 percent of all identified COVID-19 cases in the U.S."
Pseudovirus and authentic virus studies demonstrate that bamlanivimab and etesevimab together retained neutralization activity against the Alpha and Delta variants. On September 2nd, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), alongside the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), resumed the shipment and distribution of bamlanivimab and etesevimab administered together.
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