INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) and Incyte (NASDAQ: INCY) announced today initial data emerging from the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial (ACTT-2) sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). ACTT-2 included more than 1,000 patients and began on May 8 to assess the efficacy and safety of a 4-mg dose of baricitinib plus remdesivir versus remdesivir in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Baricitinib in combination with remdesivir met the primary endpoint of reduction of time to recovery in comparison with remdesivir.
Study investigators noted an approximately one-day reduction in median recovery time for the overall patient population treated with baricitinib in combination with remdesivir versus those treated with remdesivir. This finding was statistically significant. Recovery was defined as the participant being well enough for hospital discharge, meaning the participant either no longer required supplemental oxygen or ongoing medical care in the hospital, or was no longer hospitalized at Day 29. The study also met a key secondary endpoint comparing patient outcomes at Day 15 using an ordinal 8-point scale ranging from fully recovered to death.
An independent data and safety monitoring board overseeing the double-blind, randomized controlled trial met regularly throughout the trial to review safety data. Additional analyses are ongoing to understand other clinical outcome data, including mortality and safety data. NIAID is expected to publish full details of the study in a peer-reviewed journal.
“We are pleased with these data from the ACTT-2 study,” said Patrik Jonsson, Lilly senior vice president and president of Lilly Bio-Medicines. “There is an urgent need to identify COVID-19 treatments, and we will continue to work with NIAID to understand these data and next steps on baricitinib’s role moving forward. We appreciate NIAID selecting baricitinib for inclusion in this important study and the participants, investigators and collaborators for the vital roles they played.”
“These findings from ACTT-2 are another step as we improve the care of these patients,” said Andre Kalil, M.D., professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and a principal investigator of the ACTT studies. “These data may help us to better understand baricitinib’s potential role in the treatment of COVID-19.”
Based on the ACTT-2 data, Lilly plans to discuss the potential for emergency use authorization (EUA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and to explore similar measures with other regulatory agencies for baricitinib as a treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. If authorized for use, Lilly will propose that baricitinib be available through commercial channels and will work with hospitals and governments to ensure patient access. Lilly will continue to create adequate supply for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and ensure baricitinib remains available in countries where it is approved. In the U.S., baricitinib is approved for RA patients at a 2-mg daily dose; an EUA would potentially authorize a 4-mg dose for COVID-19.
Lilly will review the ACTT-2 data with NIAID and assess any impact on COV-BARRIER, the Phase 3 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study it initiated in June to evaluate the efficacy and safety of baricitinib versus background therapy in hospitalized adults with COVID-19 in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America.
“As a company, we’ve moved quickly to develop and evaluate medicines for patients for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19,” said Daniel Skovronsky, M.D., Ph.D., Lilly senior vice president and chief scientific officer. “These data allow us to better understand baricitinib’s role in potentially improving outcomes for hospitalized COVID-19 patients, and we look forward to continuing this research alongside our other initiatives to combat COVID-19.”
Baricitinib, a JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor licensed to Lilly from Incyte and marketed as OLUMIANT®, is approved in more than 70 countries as a treatment for adults with moderately to severely active RA. Studying baricitinib in controlled trials is important in order to better characterize its potential benefits and understand the safety of its use as a COVID-19 treatment. The U.S. prescribing information for the approved use of baricitinib for RA includes boxed warnings regarding the use of baricitinib, including warnings about risk for developing blood clots and serious infections.
Lilly is also currently supporting ongoing multisite and single-site investigator-initiated trials in Europe and North America for hospitalized patients with COVID-19 infections.
About Lilly’s COVID-19 Efforts
Lilly is bringing the full force of its scientific and medical expertise to attack the coronavirus pandemic around the world. Existing Lilly medicines are now being studied to understand their potential in treating complications of COVID-19, and the company is collaborating with two partner companies to discover novel antibody treatments for COVID-19. Lilly intends to test both single antibody therapy as well as combinations of antibodies (sometimes known as antibody cocktails) as potential therapeutics for COVID-19. Click here for media resources related to Lilly’s COVID-19 efforts.
About OLUMIANT®
OLUMIANT is a once-daily, oral JAK inhibitor approved in the U.S. for the treatment of adults with moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis who have had an inadequate response to one or more TNF inhibitor therapies, and approved outside of the U.S. for patients with moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis who have had an inadequate response to one or more DMARDs.i There are four known JAK enzymes: JAK1, JAK2, JAK3 and TYK2. JAK-dependent cytokines have been implicated in the pathogenesis of a number of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.ii OLUMIANT has greater inhibitory potency at JAK1, JAK2 and TYK2 relative to JAK3; however, the relevance of inhibition of specific JAK enzymes to therapeutic effectiveness is not currently known.i
In December 2009, Lilly and Incyte announced an exclusive worldwide license and collaboration agreement for the development and commercialization of baricitinib and certain follow-on compounds for patients with inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
About Eli Lilly and Company
Lilly is a global health care leader that unites caring with discovery to create medicines that make life better for people around the world. We were founded more than a century ago by a man committed to creating high-quality medicines that meet real needs, and today we remain true to that mission in all our work. Across the globe, Lilly employees work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. To learn more about Lilly, please visit us at lilly.com and lilly.com/newsroom. P-LLY
About Incyte
Incyte is a Wilmington, Delaware-based, global biopharmaceutical company focused on finding solutions for serious unmet medical needs through the discovery, development and commercialization of proprietary therapeutics. For additional information on Incyte, please visit Incyte.com and follow @Incyte.
This press release contains forward-looking statements (as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995) about OLUMIANT (baricitinib) as a potential treatment for patients with COVID-19 and as a treatment for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and about the supply of OLUMIANT, and reflects Lilly’s and Incyte’s current beliefs. This press release also contains a forward-looking statement about Lilly’s potential antibody treatments for COVID-19. However, as with any pharmaceutical product, there are substantial risks and uncertainties in the process of development and commercialization. Among other things, there can be no guarantee that OLUMIANT will receive additional regulatory approvals or continue to be commercially successful, that we can provide an adequate supply of OLUMIANT in all circumstances, or that potential antibody treatments will be safe and effective. For further discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties, see Lilly’s and Incyte’s most recent respective Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, Lilly and Incyte undertake no duty to update forward-looking statements to reflect events after the date of this release.
i Olumiant Prescribing Information, 2020.
ii Walker JG and Smith MD. J Rheumatol. 2005;32;1650-1653.
SOURCE Eli Lilly and Company
Posted: September 2020
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