Eli Lilly antibody treatment ineffective on hospitalized COVID-19 patients

Eli Lilly's COVID-19 antibody treatment failed to show a benefit in hospitalized patients in a recent trial.

The ACTIV-3 clinical trial is being run by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and is the only study evaluating the efficacy of bamlanivimab in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Based on an updated dataset from the trial reviewed on October 26, no additional COVID-19 patients in this hospitalized setting will receive bamlanivimab. This recommendation was based on trial data suggesting that bamlanivimab is unlikely to help hospitalized COVID-19 patients recover from this advanced stage of their disease. In this updated dataset, differences in safety outcomes between the groups were not significant.

All other studies of bamlanivimab remain ongoing, including ACTIV-2, the NIH-sponsored study in recently diagnosed mild to moderate COVID-19 patients; BLAZE-1, Lilly’s ongoing Phase 2 trial in people recently diagnosed with COVID-19 in the ambulatory (non-hospitalized) setting, studying bamlanivimab as monotherapy and in combination with etesevimab; and BLAZE-2, Lilly’s Phase 3 study of bamlanivimab for the prevention (prophylaxis) of COVID-19 in residents and staff at long-term care facilities. Based on data from BLAZE-1, Lilly submitted a request for EUA for bamlanivimab for the treatment of recently diagnosed mild to moderate COVID-19 illness in high-risk patients to the FDA in early October.

The FDA issued OAI notice to Lilly plant getting ready produce COVID-19 antibody therapy earlier this month.

Read the Eli Lilly statement