European Commission signs contract for the supply of a monoclonal antibody treatment
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.