Eli Lilly and Company has announced that the US government is set to purchase additional doses of its neutralising antibody therapy, etesevimab, to treat Covid-19.
Under the terms of the new deal, the company will supply 388,000 doses of etesevimab to pair with its other Covid-19 antibody therapy, bamlanivimab, which was previously purchased by the US government.
About 200,000 doses of etesevimab are expected to be delivered in the third quarter of this year.
The new deal with the US government is expected to generate nearly $330m revenue for the company in the second half of this year.
Lilly chief scientific and medical officer and Lilly Research Laboratories president Daniel Skovronsky said: “The recent increase in Covid-19 cases has caused a substantial rise in the utilisation of monoclonal antibody drugs, particularly in areas of the country with low vaccination rates.
“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% of all identified Covid-19 cases in the US.”
In February this year, the Bamlanivimab and etesevimab combination was given emergency use authorization (EUA) by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The combination therapy was approved for the treatment of mild to moderate Covid-19 patients aged 12 years and above and at high risk for progression to severe Covid-19 and/or hospitalisation or death.
The US government has also reached an agreement with Regeneron to acquire 1.4 million additional doses of its Covid-19 antibody cocktail, REGEN-COV (casirivimab and imdevimab).
REGEN-COV is a combination of casirivimab and imdevimab monoclonal antibodies designed to block SARS-CoV-2 infectivity.