Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day one forty
Speaker 1: five since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today's main story.
Speaker 1: Once a vaccine is developed, there's a chance it won't
Speaker 1: help the most vulnerable, elderly people and those with compromised
Speaker 1: immune systems. So drug companies are working on new ways
Speaker 1: to treat COVID and hoping to protect the very people
Speaker 1: vaccines may not. But first, here's what happened in virus
Speaker 1: news today. Tokyo confirmed two hundred and fifty eight new
Speaker 1: cases of the virus. Japan is facing a resurgence of
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. The country had contained its initial wave of
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen earlier this year, but now infections that were
Speaker 1: first concentrated in the capital have spread to other urban areas.
Speaker 1: Regions that went for months without cases have become new hotspots.
Speaker 1: The patient demographic in this new wave has changed, too.
Speaker 1: The virus was first spreading among younger people who were
Speaker 1: less likely to get seriously ill. Now it's expanding to
Speaker 1: the elderly. That's a major concern in the country with
Speaker 1: the world's oldest population. In the US, talks to break
Speaker 1: an impass over a new virus relief package have become
Speaker 1: increasingly urgent. Millions of jobless Americans were left without additional
Speaker 1: aid after Republicans and Democrats failed to reach a deal
Speaker 1: on a new stimulus package. The Senate is scheduled to
Speaker 1: leave for an extended break on Friday. The parties remain
Speaker 1: far apart art on some of the biggest sticking points,
Speaker 1: including extending the supplemental six hundred dollars a week that
Speaker 1: has kept many unemployed people from falling into poverty. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the White House is exploring whether President Donald Trump can
Speaker 1: act on his own to extend the benefits and eviction protection,
Speaker 1: according to people familiar with the matter. Finally, the World
Speaker 1: Health Organization says the US can still fight the spread
Speaker 1: of the disease. Maria van Kirkhove, the who's chief epidemiologist
Speaker 1: on COVID, said that by staying home and wearing masks,
Speaker 1: the country can still change its catastrophic infection trend. And
Speaker 1: now for today's main story, The drug company Eli Lily
Speaker 1: is about out to start testing it's COVID nineteen antibody
Speaker 1: drug in nursing homes. Vaccines may not work as well
Speaker 1: on elderly people or those with compromised immune systems. Since
Speaker 1: these are the very groups most at risk for severe
Speaker 1: disease or death if they contract the coronavirus, a successful
Speaker 1: antibody treatment could have a marked effect on lowering the
Speaker 1: pandemic's death. Toll I talked to reporter Riley Griffin about
Speaker 1: the new drug and the promise of antibody treatments. Tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about Eli Lillian companies. So called
Speaker 1: antibody therapy. It's a little of a lesser known approach
Speaker 1: to counturing COVID nineteen. So I was hoping you could
Speaker 1: walk us through it. Yes, So Lily is co developing
Speaker 1: what's known as a monoclonal antibody with a Canadian startup,
Speaker 1: Absilera Biologics, and these neutralizing antibodies you may have heard
Speaker 1: that term before. They're tailored to mimic immune responses to
Speaker 1: the virus. Other companies racing to come up with similar
Speaker 1: treatments include Astra Zenica and VERB Biotechnology in partnership with
Speaker 1: Glaxo Smith Klein. The best known treatment of this kind
Speaker 1: is a to antibody cocktail from Regeneraan, which actually received
Speaker 1: a whopping four fifty million dollar award from the U. S.
Speaker 1: Government's Operation Warp Speed project to that very end, and
Speaker 1: so maybe you could talk us through where Lily stands
Speaker 1: right now in terms of their clinical trials. Lily's antibody,
Speaker 1: which was isolated from one of the very first COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen patients, is now actually going into phase three clinical trials.
Speaker 1: That's the latest stage of development, and Lily is taking
Speaker 1: a single antibody approach. It's hoping that this therapy will
Speaker 1: work both as a treatment for those with COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: the disease, and as a prophylaxis which can prevent those
Speaker 1: from contracting the illness. To that end, Lily is actually
Speaker 1: studying the drug in nursing homes where the elderly are
Speaker 1: at risk of exposure. So in a lot of clinical
Speaker 1: studies that have launched in a similar setting, and there
Speaker 1: aren't many, but in those that have, the point is,
Speaker 1: if you notice that there's an outbreak in a nursing home,
Speaker 1: what do you do next? And these studies would ultimately
Speaker 1: enroll the population on the therapy and you could see
Speaker 1: who then contracted it thereafter. Given its a population that
Speaker 1: is so very much at risk, So how does this
Speaker 1: antibody approach fit into the overall larger landscape of therapeutics
Speaker 1: and vaccines. Antibody treatments are seen as a compliment to vaccines,
Speaker 1: which may not elicit the necessary immune response when administered
Speaker 1: to elderly patients or those with compromised immune systems. And
Speaker 1: that's a that's a lingering question that we all have,
Speaker 1: is how is any vaccine going to work um in
Speaker 1: the elderly, in the immunocompromised, not just among the young
Speaker 1: the healthy. It's honestly, it's increasingly evident that we're going
Speaker 1: to need effective treatments for COVID nineteen in addition to
Speaker 1: those inoculations that can prevent against contracting the virus. Though
Speaker 1: there are a hundred and sixty vaccines in various stages
Speaker 1: of development, and a handful of course in late stage
Speaker 1: human studies, we don't know how each is going to
Speaker 1: work in every specific population. We're getting closer and closer
Speaker 1: to seeing one of those candidates reached the stage in
Speaker 1: which they could get an emergency use authorization to be
Speaker 1: deployed two populations like healthcare workers. This is a really
Speaker 1: historic feat just thinking about how the industry has mobilized
Speaker 1: to bring a shot across the finish line and under
Speaker 1: a year. It's really never been done before. Are But
Speaker 1: I want to be clear here that no vaccine candidate
Speaker 1: yet looks like it could be a silver bullet for
Speaker 1: squashing the pandemic. There remain these lingering questions about how
Speaker 1: many doses will be needed, how much immunity they will offer,
Speaker 1: how durable that immunity will ultimately be, and what populations
Speaker 1: they will work to protect. And really that's all before
Speaker 1: we get into these other questions of production, distribution, access,
Speaker 1: and price. So some pharmaceutical industry CEOs who have been
Speaker 1: speaking with think that a vaccine may be needed seasonally
Speaker 1: for the indefinite future, if the virus persists, if it mutates,
Speaker 1: or if we're simply not able to get the herd
Speaker 1: immunity needed to really crush COVID nineteen. What does the
Speaker 1: US government and in particular Wall Street think of this approach. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the the US certainly is deploying capital to that end.
Speaker 1: We saw the award to Regenera on for its dual
Speaker 1: in a body approach. Um, they're making investments here like
Speaker 1: they have with vaccines, and through the same operation warp
Speaker 1: speed effort. We're also seeing the National Institutes of Health
Speaker 1: working with these companies to conduct studies of monoclonal antibodies
Speaker 1: and similar antibody therapies. Meanwhile, you asked about Wall Street
Speaker 1: investors really consider this to be an important quote unquote
Speaker 1: plan b um. If the vaccine approach doesn't pan out
Speaker 1: as it initially hoped, which is quite possible, what challenges
Speaker 1: could Lily or really any of the other producers of
Speaker 1: monoclonal antibodies have in bringing this treatment to market. Well,
Speaker 1: Manufacturing the antibodies will both be challenging and very costly. Um.
Speaker 1: Lily told us just last week that it's likely to
Speaker 1: spend more than million this year loan on COVID related
Speaker 1: R and D and manufacturing. Chief financial off a Sir
Speaker 1: Joshua Smiley actually noted that there's quite a limited amount
Speaker 1: of capacity in this world for this type of manufacturing,
Speaker 1: so they're currently working to build that out and reconfigure
Speaker 1: plants so that they can produce more than one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand doses before year end. A antibody approach is not
Speaker 1: like a pill. It's not like a small molecule. That's
Speaker 1: that's fairly cheap and can be done and mass It's
Speaker 1: a very complex technology that is costly, and they're going
Speaker 1: to be lingering questions about how to price antibody responsibly
Speaker 1: should one come to market, but also how you reach
Speaker 1: that scale and do so quickly if one should prove
Speaker 1: successful in the clinic. You know, it's a historic feat
Speaker 1: that we're seeing vaccines and therapeutics reach late stage trials
Speaker 1: and get closer to securing an emergency use authorization that
Speaker 1: would allow us to move these these important pharmaceutic goal
Speaker 1: products to healthcare workers, to frontline workers, and then beyond um.
Speaker 1: We're seeing the US, the UK, Japan reach deals to
Speaker 1: secure doses of these products should any proof successful in
Speaker 1: the clinic. But ultimately, broader success will mean more than
Speaker 1: crossing a finish line. It will mean we as a
Speaker 1: society have the wherewithal to produce, to provide, to pay,
Speaker 1: to protect ourselves from COVID nineteen and any other viruses
Speaker 1: that could one day come. That was Riley Griffin and
Speaker 1: that's it for our show today. For coverage of the
Speaker 1: outbreak from one bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: com slash coronavirus and if you like the show, please
Speaker 1: leave us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or Spotify. It's the best way to help more listeners
Speaker 1: find our global reporting. The Productnosis Daily edition is produced
Speaker 1: by Topor foreheads Jordan Gospoure, Magnus Hendrickson and me Laura Carlson.
Speaker 1: Today's main story was reported by Riley Griffin. Original music
Speaker 1: by Leo Sidron. Our editors are Francesco Levi and Rick Shine.
Speaker 1: Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.