INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Eli Lilly and
Company (NYSE: LLY) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as
part of the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, have entered into an
agreement to facilitate access to future Lilly therapeutic
antibodies under development for the prevention and treatment of
COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus,
to benefit low- and middle-income countries. Therapeutic antibodies
have the potential to prevent and treat COVID-19, reducing the
burden on healthcare systems worldwide. This effort to bring
equitable access to novel treatments is part of the COVID-19
Therapeutics Accelerator, an initiative launched by the Gates
Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard to speed the development of
and access to therapies for COVID-19.
Commercial manufacturing will commence in April 2021 at the FUJIFILM Diosynth
Biotechnologies facility in Denmark, where the Therapeutics Accelerator
reserved manufacturing capacity in an agreement announced in April.
The Gates Foundation based its decision to collaborate with Lilly
for the manufacturing capacity on pre-set criteria, including
available information regarding safety, efficacy and ability to
implement in lower-resource settings. Lilly has already started the
manufacturing technology transfer at risk, in anticipation of
regulatory authorization for its antibody therapy. In the
interest of making supply of COVID-19 therapeutic innovations
available globally as quickly as possible, Lilly will make certain
volumes of its antibody therapeutic manufactured in other
facilities available to lower-income countries prior to
April 2021, pending the timing of
regulatory authorization. Lilly and its collaboration
partners will continue to be responsible for research and
development of the product.
Lilly's collaborators, AbCellera Biologics Inc., Shanghai Junshi
Biosciences Co., Ltd. and Columbia
University have agreed to waive their royalties on the Lilly
therapeutic antibodies distributed in low- and middle-income
countries as part of this initiative.
"Medicines that can help reduce the impact of COVID-19 will be
an important part of the solution to this pandemic and are urgently
needed by people all over the world," said David A. Ricks, Lilly's chairman and CEO. "Lilly
is proud to be a part of the collective global effort to help
ensure equitable access to COVID-19 therapeutic options for people
in low- and middle-income countries."
The arrangement is part of Lilly's philanthropic efforts and
supports Lilly 30x30, the company's goal to improve access to
quality health care for 30 million people living in settings with
limited resources, each year, by 2030. This latest effort builds on
decades of public-private-philanthropic partnerships among Lilly
and other biopharmaceutical industry partners. This includes
collaborations on tuberculosis and more recent agreements to speed
the development, manufacture and delivery of vaccines, diagnostics
and treatments for COVID-19, as well as a health worker training
initiative that will reach up to 1.7 million people in six
sub-Saharan African countries.
"To help end the COVID-19 pandemic it is vital that people, no
matter where they live or their ability to pay, can access
effective therapeutics," said Mark
Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "It
is encouraging to see Lilly stepping up and committing to making
products more affordable and accessible to everyone who needs them.
Until every country can effectively tackle COVID-19, no country
will be safe."
About the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator
The Therapeutics Accelerator is an initiative launched by the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard to speed
up the response to the COVID-19 pandemic by identifying, assessing,
developing, and scaling up treatments. Its partners are committed
to equitable access, including making products available and
affordable in low-resource settings. The COVID-19 Therapeutics
Accelerator will play a catalytic role by accelerating and
evaluating new and repurposed drugs and biologics to treat patients
with COVID-19 in the immediate term, and other viral pathogens in
the longer term. For more information, visit
www.therapeuticsaccelerator.org
About Lilly's COVID-19 Efforts
Lilly is bringing the full force of its scientific and medical
expertise to attack the coronavirus pandemic around the world.
Existing Lilly medicines are now being studied to understand their
potential in treating complications of COVID-19, and the company is
collaborating with partner companies to discover novel antibody
treatments for COVID-19. Lilly is testing both single antibody
therapy as well as combinations of antibodies as potential
therapeutics for COVID-19. Click here for media resources
related to Lilly's COVID-19 efforts.
About Eli Lilly and Company
Lilly is a global health
care leader that unites caring with discovery to create medicines
that make life better for people around the world. We were founded
more than a century ago by a man committed to creating high-quality
medicines that meet real needs, and today we remain true to that
mission in all our work. Across the globe, Lilly employees work to
discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them,
improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back
to communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. To learn more
about Lilly, please visit us
at www.lilly.com and www.lilly.com/news. C-LLY
Lilly Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking
Statements
This press release contains forward-looking
statements (as that term is defined in the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995) about an agreement between Lilly and
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to facilitate access to
future Lilly therapeutic antibodies under development for the
prevention and treatment of COVID-19 to low- and middle-income
countries, and reflects Lilly's current beliefs. However, as with
any such undertaking, there are substantial risks and uncertainties
in the process of drug development and commercialization. Among
other things, there can be no guarantee that Lilly's therapeutic
antibodies under development will prove to be safe and effective
treatments or preventatives for COVID-19, that Lilly will receive
regulatory approvals or authorizations, or that we can provide an
adequate supply of such treatments or preventatives to low- and
middle-income countries in all circumstances. For a further
discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties that could
cause actual results to differ from Lilly's expectations, please
see Lilly's most recent Forms 10-K and 10-Q filed with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission. Lilly undertakes no duty to
update forward-looking statements.
Refer to:
|
Molly McCully;
mccully_molly@lilly.com; (317) 478-5423 (Media)
|
|
Kevin Hern;
hern_kevin_r@lilly.com; (317) 277-1838 (Investors)
|
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SOURCE Eli Lilly and Company