Many healthcare workers aren't using COVID-19 antibody drugs from Eli Lilly and Regeneron, citing lack of data and staffing shortages, The Wall Street Journal reports.
On average, Operation Warp Speed officials say healthcare providers are administering just 20 percent of allotted doses each week.
"Physicians are not ordering the drug," Michael Ison, MD, an infectious disease physician at Chicago-based Northwestern Memorial Hospital told the Journal. Some physicians feel the antibody drugs are too new, making it difficult to weigh which patients would benefit, he said.
Administering the treatments can be time time consuming and some hospitals don't have the staffing capacity, several experts told the Journal. There isn't much patient interest either.
Healthcare workers at Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital, for example, have only administered 10 percent of Eli Lilly's bamlanivimab, while the hospital hasn't yet touched Regeneron's casirivimab and imdevimab antibody cocktail.
Currently, the National Institutes of Health and Infectious Diseases Society of America say more data is needed to make informed decisions on the treatments.
"The emergency-use authorization is based on a standard of data which is different than the normal drug approval," Daniel Skovronsky, MD, PhD, Eli Lilly's chief scientific officer, told the Journal. "On the other hand, we're excited about the potential that we've seen in our clinical trials: particularly, we saw reduced hospitalizations and emergency-room visits. Although it was a small trial, Regeneron had almost the exact same kind of impact."
The FDA authorized emergency use of the monoclonal antibody therapies in November. They're approved for use in COVID-19 patients who are at high risk of becoming severe.