Eli Lilly and Company and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as part of the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, have entered into an agreement to facilitate access to future Lilly therapeutic antibodies (Abs) under development for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus, to benefit low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Therapeutic antibodies have the potential to prevent and treat COVID-19, reducing the burden on healthcare systems worldwide. This effort to bring equitable access to novel treatments is part of the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, an initiative launched by the Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard to speed the development of and access to therapies for COVID-19.

Commercial manufacturing will commence in April 2021 at the FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies facility in Denmark, where the Therapeutics Accelerator reserved manufacturing capacity in an agreement announced in April. 

The Gates Foundation based its decision to collaborate with Lilly for the manufacturing capacity on pre-set criteria, including available information regarding safety, efficacy and ability to implement in lower-resource settings. Lilly has already started the manufacturing technology transfer at risk, in anticipation of regulatory authorization for its antibody therapy.

In the interest of making supply of COVID-19 therapeutic innovations available globally as quickly as possible, Lilly will make certain volumes of its antibody therapeutic manufactured in other facilities available to lower-income countries prior to April 2021, pending the timing of regulatory authorization. Lilly and its collaboration partners will continue to be responsible for research and development of the product.

Lilly's collaborators, AbCellera Biologics Inc., Shanghai Junshi Biosciences Co., Ltd. and Columbia University have agreed to waive their royalties on the Lilly therapeutic antibodies distributed in low- and middle-income countries as part of this initiative.