THUNDER BAY – Canada is leaving a potentially life-saving tool on the table in the fight against COVID-19, says Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Marcus Powlowski.
Powlowski was joined by three other Liberal MPs and a dozen doctors, mostly infectious disease specialists, in signing a recent letter calling on all levels of government to expedite approval and use of monoclonal antibody treatments to reduce the severity of the disease in high-risk patients.
The letter warns hospitals and ICUs in many parts of the country are becoming overwhelmed, risking a “healthcare catastrophe.”
It suggests emerging therapeutic treatments based on monoclonal antibodies, designed to mimic the body's immune response, could significantly reduce hospitalizations and deaths.
“The evidence to support the use of monoclonal antibodies in the treatment of COVID-19… grows more compelling each week,” the letter reads.
“Yet despite this evidence and the fact that the Canadian federal government purchased $32 million of these drugs in the form of bamlanivimab, the use of this treatment in Canada is almost non-existent – and for not particularly clear reasons.”
Although bamlanivimab has been approved by Health Canada, treatments combining monoclonal antibodies from pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly and Regeneron are still awaiting approval.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health has recommended them for use in the United States, it points out. The treatments have received emergency use authorizations from the FDA, which found they significantly reduced hospitalizations and deaths in initial studies.
A Health Canada official, responding to a question from Powlowski at the Standing Committee on Health earlier this month, said both products are undergoing an “expedited review process,” but couldn’t say when a decision on approval was expected.
Even with limited research on the treatments published in peer-reviewed journals, the signatories to the letter said sufficient evidence existed to approve the combinations.
“We do not wish to downplay the importance of peer-reviewed research,” they write. “However, the evidence for these treatments is right now sufficiently robust – and the side-effects sufficiently limited – that Canadian physicians should be able to offer these treatments to eligible patients.”
“Indeed, the United States accepts this evidence and has already set up over 5000 infusion sites which have administered this treatment to close to a million people.”
The treatments target patients with mild to moderate disease who do not require hospital admission but have medical conditions putting them at greater risk of severe complications from COVID-19.
That would include those with severe obesity, kidney disease, diabetes, and immunocompromising conditions, the letter suggests, as well as those above the age of 55 or 65 with cardiovascular disease, hypertension, or chronic pulmonary disease.
“We call on all orders of government to immediately work with clinicians and hospitals to increase access to these potentially life-saving drugs, including expediting the approval of combination monoclonal antibodies,” the letter concludes. “If we act now, we might be able to reduce the overcrowding of our ICUs and prevent needless deaths."
The full letter can be read online.
