Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly said Wednesday that combining two antibody drugs to fight coronovirus reduced the risk of hospitalization and death by 87 percent.
The finding is based on a study of 769 high-risk COVID-19 patients older than 12 and older than mild to moderate COVID-19.
company said None of the patients treated with a combination of bamalanivimab and etsevimab died. Four people in the placebo group died of coronovirus.
“I expect this data to continue to use antibodies more often,” said Eli Lilly Chief Scientific Officer Daniel Skowronski.
“We have some other diseases where we have drugs that can offer this magnitude of benefit.”
The second major, late-stage study to show that antibody therapy is effective in treating mild-to-moderate cases of COVID-19.
The previous study, which came out in January, used higher doses of drugs and reduced the risk of hospitalization by up to 70 percent.
US regulators first authorized combination therapy for 12 in COVID-19 patients and for those at high risk of coming with a severe case of the virus thereafter.
That month, the US agreed to purchase a minimum of 100,000 doses of combination treatment.
With post wires
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