Regeneron's is not the only monoclonal antibody (mab) treatment "out there". Eli Lilly also has a mab treatment that the FDA has authorized. Its story is a bit more involved, so I'll go through some chronological milestones:
October 28, 2020 - Agreement announced for Feds' purchase of 300,000 vials of bamlanivimab.
November 9, 2020 - Eli Lilly's and AbCellera's bamlanivimab received Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA. Bamlanivimab was the first product from a DARPA project to develop platforms for quick early responses to emerging epidemics. The project was announced in very early 2017, and launched in very early 2018.
December 2, 2020 - Agreement announced for Feds' purchase of another 650,000 doses of bamlanivimab. This was done during a multi-month surge that peaked around January 8, 2021.
January 26, 2021 - Data announced from a combination trial of bamlanivimab and etesevimab. Etesevimab is licensed by Eli Lilly from Junshi Biosciences of Shanghai, China.
February 9, 2021 - The bamlanivimab-etesevimab combination received Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA. BTW, Regeneron's REGEN-COV is also a combination of two mabs.
February 26, 2021 - Agreement announced for Feds' purchase of 100,000 doses of the bamlanivimab-etesevimab combination.
April 12, 2021 - Existing purchase agreements with the Feds modified to add etesevimab to bamlanivimab-only agreements.
April 16, 2021 - Eli Lilly requested the withdrawal of the bamlanivimab-only Emergency Use Authorization.
September 15, 2021 - Agreement announced for Feds' purchase of 388,000 doses of the etesevimab for use with doses of bamlanivimab purchased under bamlanivimab-only contracts.
Like I said, the history is a bit more involved. And if one roots through Eli Lilly press releases,
http://lilly.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=9042&l=100 , it can be seen that another mab combination with bamlanivimab is being tested.
Two things kind of stood out to me:
1. The 5 month gap between the April 12 contract modification and the purchase of the 388,000 doses of the etesevimab. 5 months of no action, even though the spring mini-surge had consumed some stocks of mab treatments and the summer surge was recognizable before mid June.
Five. Idle. Months!2. Part of the 5 idle months was not purchasing the etesevimab to pair with the solo doses of bamlanivimab. Hello! The Feds knew the solo doses of bamlanivimab could not be used as is, but let them sit for 5 months before finally purchasing the etesevimab that would make those solo doses usable.
Context matters, and the past few days' purchases of etesevimab and REGEN-COV were in the context of the summer 2021 Covid surge having peaked around August 27th, about 3 weeks ago.
LIEden's
spokeshypers make scary-urgent noises, but
LIEden's bureaucrats don't purchase with anything resembling urgency!
LIEden's MalAdministration mixes its messaging with an industrial blender set to warp speed!