The Food and Drug Administration has given emergency approval for the use of an experimental antibody treatment from Eli Lilly to treat people with COVID-19, Business Insider reports.
The treatment is similar to a Regeneron antibody cocktail received by Donald Trump when he was hospitalized at Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Bethesda Maryland in early October.
The treatment is not a cure. It’s a therapy that lowers viral loads in patients with mild to moderate cases of COVID-19, reducing the risk of the infection worsening. It has shown no significant side effects in patients.
The emergency approval allows medical providers to give the treatment to high-risk coronavirus patients.
Last month, Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said the company wanted patients to have “no or very, very low out-of-pocket costs anywhere in the world to receive this therapy.”