EU Drug Agency Investigating New COVID-19 Treatment

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Friday announced that it has launched a review of drugs to treat COVID-19 patients.

EMA made the announcement in Amsterdam saying that the study results of the antibody drug, Sotrovimab, would be assessed under the accelerated rolling review procedure.

The drug is produced by the British manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline together with the U.S. company Vir Biotechnology.

According to the EMA, initial results of studies indicate that the drug could prevent a severe bout of the COVID-19 disease and thus hospitalisation and death.

However, since the EMA has not yet received all the data, it is not yet possible to weigh up the benefits and risks. It is unclear how long the review would take.

In the rolling review process, data are assessed even before the studies had been completed, and an application for marketing authorisation had already been submitted.

The EMA experts are already reviewing three other antibody drugs against COVID-19.
So far, Remdesivir is the only drug that the agency had approved for the treatment of COVID-19.