The U.S. will purchase a minimum of 100,000 doses of Eli Lilly's COVID-19 antibody cocktail for $210 million, the drugmaker said Feb. 26.
The FDA granted emergency use authorization Feb. 9 to the antibody cocktail, a combination of antibodies bamlanivimab and etesevimab.
The agency granted emergency use authorization to bamlanivimab Nov. 9. The new approval is based on phase 3 trial data that showed that administering it with etesevimab reduced the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization and death by 70 percent.
The National Institutes of Health on Feb. 23 updated its COVID-19 treatment guidelines to recommend the use of the antibody cocktail to treat outpatients with mild to moderate cases of COVID-19 who are at high risk of clinical progression.
Eli Lilly said the doses will be delivered through March 31. The U.S has the option to purchase up to 1.1 million more doses through Nov. 25 under the same terms as the base agreement.
The U.S. has already purchased 1.45 million doses of bamlanivimab alone, more than 1 million of which have been delivered. Eli Lilly said the additional 450,000 doses will be delivered by March 31.
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