Eli Lil­ly lines up a block­buster deal for Covid-19 an­ti­body, right af­ter it failed a NI­AID tri­al

Two days af­ter Eli Lil­ly con­ced­ed that its an­ti­body bam­lanivimab was a flop in hos­pi­tal­ized Covid-19 pa­tients, the US gov­ern­ment is prepar­ing to make it a block­buster.

The phar­ma gi­ant re­port­ed ear­ly Wednes­day that it struck a deal to sup­ply the feds with 300,000 vials of the drug at a cost of $375 mil­lion — once it gets an EUA stamp from the FDA. And once that 2-month sup­ply deal is done, the gov­ern­ment has an op­tion on an­oth­er 650,000 dos­es on the same terms — which could po­ten­tial­ly add an­oth­er $812 mil­lion.

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