(Reuters) -Eli Lilly and Co said on Monday it had a revised agreement with the U.S. government for its COVID-19 antibody drug, bamlanivimab, which will now be sold in combination with another therapy.
Concerns over the impact on the drug’s efficacy from rapidly spreading coronavirus variants that are resistant to the drug when administered alone led to the U.S. government stopping distribution of the therapy last month.
Lilly and the U.S. government have agreed to modify their existing agreement to enable the supply of etesevimab to complement doses of bamlanivimab the U.S. government had already purchased, the drugmaker said.
The earlier supply agreement for bamlanivimab has been terminated and cancels the remaining 350,856 doses of bamlanivimab that were scheduled to be delivered by the end of March 2021.
(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
