A p-val­ue of 0.38? NE­JM re­sults raise new ques­tions for Eli Lil­ly's vaunt­ed Covid an­ti­body

Gen­er­al­ly, a p-val­ue of 0.38 means your drug failed and by a fair mar­gin. De­pend­ing on the com­pa­ny, the com­pound and the tri­al, it might mean the end of the pro­gram. It could trig­ger lay­offs.

For Eli Lil­ly, though, it was part of the key end­point on a tri­al that land­ed them a $1.2 bil­lion deal with the US gov­ern­ment to sup­ply up to near­ly 1 mil­lion Covid-19 an­ti­bod­ies.

So what does one make of that? Was the end­point not so im­por­tant, as Lil­ly main­tains? Or did the US gov­ern­ment promise a prince­ly sum for a pedes­tri­an drug?

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