Coronavirus: Commission signs contract for the supply of a monoclonal antibody treatment

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.

The Commission has signed a joint procurement framework contract with the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly for the supply of a monoclonal antibody treatment for coronavirus patients. This marks the latest development in this first portfolio of five promising therapeutics announced by the Commission under the EU COVID-19 Therapeutics Strategy in June 2021. The medicine is currently under rolling review by the European Medicines Agency. 18 Member States have signed up to the joint procurement for the purchase of up to 220,000 treatments.

Stella Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said: “Over 73% of the EU adult population is now fully vaccinated, and this rate will still increase. But vaccines cannot be our only response to COVID-19. People still continue to be infected and fall ill. We need to continue our work to prevent illness with vaccines and at the same time ensure that we can treat it with therapeutics. With today’s signature, we conclude our third procurement and deliver on our commitment under the EU Therapeutics Strategy to facilitate access to state-of-the-art medicines for COVID-19 patients.”

While vaccination remains the strongest asset both against the virus and its variants, therapeutics play a critical role in the COVID-19 response. They help to save lives, speed up recovery time, reduce the length of hospitalisation and ultimately ease the burden of health care systems.

The product from Eli Lilly is a combination of two monoclonal antibodies (bamlanivimab and etesevimab) for the treatment of coronavirus patients who do not require oxygen but are at high risk of severe COVID-19. Monoclonal antibodies are proteins conceived in the laboratory that mimic the immune system’s ability to fight the coronavirus. They fuse to the spike protein and thus block the virus’s attachment to the human cells.

Under the EU Joint Procurement Agreement, the European Commission has concluded until now nearly 200 contracts for different medical countermeasures with a cumulative value of over €12 billion. Under the joint procurement framework contract concluded with Eli Lilly, Member States can purchase the combination product bamlanivimab and etesevimab if and when needed, once it has received either a conditional marketing authorisation at EU level from the European Medicines Agency or an emergency use authorisation in the Member State concerned.

Background

Today’s joint procurement contract follows the contract signed with Roche for the product REGN-COV2, a combination of Casirivimab and Imdevimab, on 31 March 2021 and the contract with Glaxo Smith Kline on 27 July 2021 for the supply of sotrovimab (VIR-7831), developed in collaboration with VIR biotechnology.

The EU Strategy on COVID-19 Therapeutics, adopted on 6 May 2021, aims to build a broad portfolio of COVID-19 therapeutics with the goal of having three new therapeutics available by October 2021 and possibly two more by the end of the year. It covers the full lifecycle of medicines from research, development, selection of promising candidates, fast regulatory approval, manufacturing and deployment to final use. It will also coordinate, scale-up and ensure that the EU acts together in ensuring access to therapeutics via joint procurements.

The Strategy forms part of a strong European Health Union, using a coordinated EU approach to better protect the health of our citizens, equip the EU and its Member States to better prevent and address future pandemics, and improve resilience of Europe’s health systems. Focusing on the treatment of patients with COVID-19, the Strategy works alongside the successful EU Vaccines Strategy, through which safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19 have been authorised for use in the EU to prevent and reduce transmission of cases, as well as hospitalisation rates and deaths caused by the disease.

On 29 June 2021, the strategy delivered its first outcome, with the announcement of five candidate therapeutics that could soon be available to treat patients across the EU. The five products are in an advanced stage of development and have a high potential to be among the three new COVID-19 therapeutics to receive authorisation by October 2021, the target set under the strategy, provided the final data demonstrate their safety, quality and efficacy.

Global cooperation on therapeutics is crucial and a key component of our strategy. The Commission is committed to working together with international partners on COVID-19 therapeutics and make them available globally. The Commission is also exploring how to support the enabling environment for manufacturing health products, while strengthening research capacity in partner countries around the globe.