Eli Lilly's RA drug shows continued promise as an add-on to remdesivir

Eli Lilly and Incyte have shared additional data showing rheumatoid arthritis med Olumiant, in combination with Gilead's remdesivir, reduced time to recovery and improved clinical outcomes for patients with COVID-19 infection compared with remdesivir alone.

The drugmaker is in conversations with the US FDA around the potential for Emergency Use Authorization of the JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor licensed to Lilly from Incyte, to treat hospitalized patients with COVID-19.

The new findings were part of additional efficacy and safety data from the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial (ACTT-2) sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The followup trial found that Olumiant added to the antiviral remdesivir cut COVID-19 patients' time to recovery from eight days to seven days over remdesivir alone and improved the odds of clinical improvement by 30 percent after 15 days of treatment.

The drugmaker recently announced that it had applied for an EUA for its experimental monoclonal antibody treatment for patients with COVID-19 after trial showing that its combination antibody therapy reduced the rate of hospitalizations in patients with mild-to-moderate symptoms to 1 percent.