Eli Lilly’s drug trial is for its monoclonal antibody treatment that is used in combination with the anti-viral, remdesivir was paused two weeks ago after federal inspectors found serious quality control problems at an Eli Lilly and Co. pharmaceutical plant in Branchburg, New Jersey.
However, late on Monday, according to The Hill, NIAID = which is funding the study – announced that an independent monitoring board found little clinical benefit in the treatment, and recommended that it be stopped.
NBC News is saying the termination of the Lilly study poses a real setback for the promising antibody treatment. President Donald Trump received a similar treatment using Regeneron’s antibody treatment while he was hospitalized with the coronavirus earlier this month.
Trump ally and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said he was treated with Lilly’s antibody-drug, along with remdesivir. Christie is just one of about 30 people who contracted the coronavirus at the White House over the past several weeks.
NIAID said on Monday that while Lilly’s monoclonal antibody treatment study has been halted, it plans to test other experimental drugs as COVID-19 treatments in the study.
Eli Lilly said Monday that all other studies of its monoclonal antibody drug, bamlanivimab, will continue, including one in recently diagnosed COVID-19 patients with mild to moderate symptoms and another in people at risk of infection, reports ABC News.
“While there was insufficient evidence that bamlanivimab improved clinical outcomes when added to other treatments in hospitalized patients with COVID-19, we remain confident based on data from Lilly’s BLAZE-1 study that bamlanivimab monotherapy may prevent progression of the disease for those earlier in the course of COVID-19,” Eli Lilly and Company said in a statement Monday.
