US-based Humanigen has partnered with Eversana, a provider of services for the life sciences industry, to commercialise its Covid-19 drug for hospitalised and hypoxic patients.
The US-based biopharmaceutical firm is focused on preventing and treating an immune hyper-response, also called cytokine storm, using its lead drug candidate lenzilumab.
The company intends to commercialise the investigational drug, after receiving the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Emergency Use Authorization and subsequent BLA.
Eversana chief executive officer Jim Lang said: “We stand ready to immediately activate our services spanning all disciplines of the product journey to ensure lenzilumab delivers significant patient value.
“While Eversana’s model can be applied to any therapy or indication, we have a moral obligation to help Covid-19 patients in distress, knowing that even with the promise of vaccines there will be many patients who contract this virus and desperately need a treatment if hospitalised and hypoxic.”
Lenzilumab is a Humaneered anti-human granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) monoclonal antibody, designed to prevent and treat cytokine storm, which is considered to be a primary cause of death in Covid-19 patients.
According to the data, up to 89% of hospitalised Covid-19 patients are hypoxic and are at the risk of cytokine storm, and may trigger acute respiratory distress syndrome in severe cases, said Humanigen.
Under the terms of the partnership agreement, Humanigen obtains immediate access to Eversana’s integrated services, and anticipates an EUA for the use of lenzilumab in hospitalised Covid-19 patients.
The services include marketing, market access, medical education, health economics and outcomes research, medical information, compliance and medical science liaison teams, where each service is optimised by data and predictive analytics.
Humanigen said that its partnership with Eversana is based on its commercial preparation and planning to launch lenzilumab, since the last several months.
Humanigen chief executive officer Cameron Durrant said: “Eversana shares our tireless commitment to patients.
“We’ve matched our dedication to research and development in Covid-19 with a proven commercialisation partner to ensure lenzilumab will reach patients quickly and efficiently following a potential EUA.”
