Lilly's COVID 19 Candidate Fast Tracked

The Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) drug, Olumiant (also known as baricitinib) has been fast tracked to a final study before use to fight COVID 19.  Lilly's baricitinib, already used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, belongs to a class of weapons against COVID 19 that have the advantage of a safely proven track record in the human body.  President Trump pushed for the first two of these, which he added to the American arsenal.  And, just last week, a Gilead Science (GILD) drug, remdesivir, became the third.  However, Lilly's baricitinib is already in tests to find out if it will be the fourth, and, in fact, could be used as a tandem drug combination with Gilead's medicine.

I am pleased that government drug regulatory departments are, for the most part, getting out of the way.  After all, it isn't just the non-paying, drug-injected welfare cases that may suffer if an under-tested drug has harmful side effects.  Those who have to wait and die before the government lets a pharmaceutical company sell it's product pay a big price too.

Paul Wharton

Special thanks to Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) for inventing the fuel of my mind