Covid-19 roundup: US to pay $725M for Eli Lil­ly's new mAb, if au­tho­rized; WHO chief sci­en­tist says more vari­ants are com­ing

Eli Lil­ly had a big day in the Wash­ing­ton, DC area yes­ter­day. Af­ter get­ting pum­meled at an ad­comm for sub­mit­ting a can­cer drug can­di­date with on­ly Chi­nese tri­al da­ta, the com­pa­ny and HHS an­nounced lat­er in the af­ter­noon that the US would pur­chase 600,000 dos­es of the com­pa­ny’s next-gen mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body to treat Covid-19 for at least $720 mil­lion.

But the dos­es of bebtelovimab, which will work against Omi­cron, will on­ly be paid if the mAb is grant­ed an EUA from the FDA. The mAb is cur­rent­ly in a Phase II tri­al and Lil­ly has sub­mit­ted an EUA re­quest for the treat­ment of mild to mod­er­ate Covid-19 in cer­tain high-risk pa­tients.

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