Another New COVID Drug Combo Shows Incredible Promise

Is the light at the end of the tunnel about to blindside us all when it comes to COVID-19?

We’ve been at this for just about a year now, as bars and restaurants were largely shuttered just after St. Patrick’s Day 2020 on account of the coronavirus pandemic’s arrival here in the United States.  Since that time, we’ve been social distancing, masking up, and largely worrying about not only the health of our loved ones, but about the economic impact that such a large and pervasive shutdown could conjure.

A year later, there are a number of vaccines circumnavigating the globe, and even more are on the way.

Furthermore, our understanding of the illness has allowed us to develop a number of new treatments that could help to keep our at-risk countrymen from developing life-threatening complications.

A combination of two Eli Lilly antibody drugs cut the risk of COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths by 87%, the company announced Wednesday, further upholding dosing already authorized by the Food and Drug Administration.

The findings draw from a BLAZE-1 Phase 3 cohort with 769 mild-to-moderate coronavirus patients aged 12 and up at high-risk of progressing to severe disease. There were 15 “events” like hospitalizations or deaths in the placebo group, and four “events” in a group of patients taking 700 mg of bamlanivimab and 1400 mg of etesevimab together, “representing an 87 percent risk reduction,” Lilly announced.

The company noted four deaths, which were all associated with COVID-19 and all occurred in the placebo group. Lilly said the new findings were consistent with other data previously announced, like a cohort involving high-risk patients given 2800 mg of bamlanivimab and 2800 mg of etesevimab, resulting in a 70% reduction in risk of hospitalization and death.

The news comes at an optimistic time in American history, as a large-scale reopening of the economy looks capable of bringing a new “roaring twenties” to the United States.