Eli Lilly has signed an agreement with China-based biopharmaceutical firm Junshi Biosciences to jointly develop therapeutic antibodies to prevent and treat Covid-19.
When the Covid-19 outbreak started, Junshi Biosciences began a research and development (R&D) programme to find therapies against the novel coronavirus that causes the infection.
So far, the company has engineered several neutralising antibodies and the lead candidate, JS016, is set to advance into clinical testing in the second quarter of this year.
JS016 is a recombinant fully human monoclonal neutralising antibody said to be specific to the SARS-CoV-2 surface spike protein receptor-binding domain.