The European Commission announced on Tuesday 21 September that it had signed a new group purchase contract for a candidate treatment against Covid-19.
The treatment in question - which is still undergoing a rolling review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) - combines the antibodies bamlanivimab and etesevimab, and is being developed by the American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.
It was identified last June by the Commission as one of the five “most promising” treatment solutions for Covid-19 (see EUROPE 12752/16).
18 Member States have expressed interest in the potential treatment, the Commission said, adding that it has signed up for the purchase of up to 220,000 doses.
Under this contract, interested states will be able to purchase the treatment once it has received conditional marketing authorisation from the EMA or a national emergency use authorisation.
This is the third group purchase contract signed by the European Commission to procure a therapeutic solution for Covid-19. A first contract of this type was concluded at the end of March with the Swiss laboratory Roche, then a second in July with GSK (see EUROPE 12771/1). The treatment candidates of these two laboratories are also still under review by the EMA.
Continuing vaccination
Reacting to the announcement, EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides insisted that Europeans, while ensuring that the disease can be treated with therapeutic solutions, should continue their efforts to prevent the spread of the virus with vaccines.
On the same day, European Affairs Ministers meeting in Brussels also agreed that it was imperative to continue to support the ongoing vaccination campaign in their respective states (see EUROPE 12794/7).
They all noted that these campaigns were not progressing at the same speed in the different Member States (see EUROPE 12778/6) and that they would need to do more to address, in particular, the persistent disinformation and mistrust about vaccines. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)