Covid, soon 5 therapies available in Europe

First results for the EU strategy on therapies for Covid 19, the disease caused by the coronavirus Sars-CoV-2. The European Commission announces a first portfolio of five treatments that “may soon be available to treat the sick in the EU”. Four of these therapies are monoclonal antibodies, which are under rolling review by the EMA. The fifth is an immunosuppressant, which has a marketing authorization that could also be extended to the treatment of Covid patients. For the European Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides, “even if vaccination is speeding up, the virus will not disappear and patients will need safe and effective treatments to reduce the burden of Covid-19”. The five products, explains the Commission, are in an “advanced” development phase and have a “high potential” to be “among the three new therapies for Covid-19 that will receive authorization by October 2021”, a target set by the strategy, provided that they are safe and effective. In detail, it is a new indication for an existing drug, the immunosuppressant Baricitinib (a drug that reduces the activity of the immune system), manufactured by Eli Lilly. The request is under examination by the EMA. The other four are monoclonal antibodies, which the EMA currently has in rolling review, an accelerated procedure for reviewing clinical data. In particular, it is a combination of Eli Lilly’s Bamlanivimab and Etesevimab; a combination of Casirivimab and Imdevimab from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Roche; Celltrion’s Regdanivimab; of Sotrovimab by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology.