Skip to Content
800-533-8762
  • Careers
  • Newsroom
  • Health Care Professionals
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
UPMC
  • Find a Doctor
  • Services
    • Frequently Searched Services
    • Frequently Searched Services
      Allergy & Immunology Behavioral & Mental Health Cancer Ear, Nose & Throat Endocrinology Gastroenterology Heart & Vascular Imaging Neurosciences Orthopaedics
      Physical Rehabilitation Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery Primary Care Senior Services Sports Medicine Telemedicine Transplant Surgery Walk-In Care Weight Management Women’s Health
      See all Services
    • Services by Region
    • Find a UPMC health care facility close to you quickly by browsing by region.
      UPMC in Western Pa. Western Pa. and New York
      UPMC in Central Pa. Central Pa.
      UPMC in North Central Pa. North Central Pa.
      UPMC in Western Md. Maryland & West Virginia
    • See All Services
  • Locations
    • Locations by Type
    • Locations by Type
      UPMC hospitals
      Hospitals
      Physical Therapy
      Physical Therapy
      Urgent care
      Walk-In Care
      UPMC Outpatient Centers
      Outpatient Centers
      UPMC Imaging Services
      Imaging
      Community Health Centers
      Community Health Centers
      See All Locations
    • Locations by Region
    • Locations by Region
      UPMC in Southwest Pa. Southwest Pa.
      UPMC in North Central Pa. North Central Pa.
      UPMC in Northwest Pa and Ny. Northwest Pa. & Western N.Y.
      UPMC in West Central Pa. West Central Pa.
      UPMC in Central Pa. Central Pa.
      UPMC in Western Md. Maryland & West Virginia
    • See All Locations
  • Patients & Visitors
    • Patient & Visitor Resources
    • Patient & Visitor Resources
      Patients and Visitors Resources Pay a Bill Classes & Events Medical Records Health Library Patient Information
      Patient Portals Privacy Information Shared Decision Making Traveling Patients Visitor Information
      Man uses mobile phone
      Pay a Bill
      Nurse reviews medical chart
      Request Medical Records
  • Patient Portals
  • Find Covid-19 updates
  • Schedule an appointment
  • Request medical records
  • Pay a bill
  • Learn about financial assistance
  • Find classes & events
  • Send a patient an eCard
  • Make a donation
  • Volunteer
  • Read HealthBeat blog
  • Explore UPMC Careers
Skip to Content
UPMC
  • Patient Portals
  • For Patients & Visitors
    • Find a Doctor
    • Locations
    • Patient & Visitor Resources
    • Pay a Bill
    • Services
    • More
      • Medical Records
      • Financial Assistance
      • Classes & Events
      • HealthBeat Blog
      • Health Library
  • About UPMC
    • Why UPMC
    • Facts & Stats
    • Supply Chain Management
    • Community Commitment
    • More
      • Financials
      • Support UPMC
      • UPMC Apps
      • UPMC Enterprises
      • UPMC International
  • For Health Care Professionals
    • Physician Information
    • Resources
    • Education & Training
    • Departments
    • Credentialing
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
  • Newsroom
  • UPMC >
  • Media Relations >
  • News Releases >
  • 090821 OPTIMISE interim
Media Relations
News Releases
Central Pa. News
North Central Pa. News
Contact Us
Experts
Community-Focused News
Media Kits
Media RSS
Media Relations
News Releases
Central Pa. News
North Central Pa. News
Contact Us
Experts
Community-Focused News
Media Kits
Media RSS

Chat Keywords List

  • cancel or exit: Stops your conversation
  • start over: Restarts your current scenario
  • help: Shows what this bot can do
  • terms: Shows terms of use and privacy statement
  • feedback: Give us feedback
Continue
Chat with UPMC
RESTART
MENU
CLOSE

UPMC and Pitt Provide First Results of Largest Comparative Randomized Trial of Monoclonal Antibody Treatment for COVID-19

For Journalists

Allison Hydzik
Director, Science and Research
412-647-9975
hydzikam@upmc.edu

Wendy Zellner
Vice President
412-586-9777
zellnerwl@upmc.edu

Want to Make an Appointment or Need Patient Information?
Contact UPMC at

1-800-533-8762.

Go to Find a Doctor to search for a UPMC doctor.

2021 UPMC PITT HS

9/8/2021

NOTE: The COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing and clinical and public health recommendations are evolving. This press release and the news it describes may now be outdated. Consult your physician and public health authorities for updated guidance.


 

PITTSBURGH – Monoclonal antibodies—an outpatient treatment that must be given soon after COVID-19 diagnosis—significantly decrease hospitalization and death from the disease. Real-world data from UPMC patients now show that two antibody combination treatments—bamlanivimab-etesevimab and casirivimab-imdevimab—were safe and appeared to be equally effective.

 

These interim results come from UPMC’s innovative OPTIMISE-C19 study, a randomized, adaptive trial designed to simultaneously expand access to monoclonal antibodies and compare the effectiveness of different treatments for outpatients with COVID-19. The next phase of the trial, which already is in progress, will evaluate how well the currently authorized treatments work against coronavirus variants, including Delta, to prevent hospitalization and death.

 

UPMC and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine physician-scientists published the findings in medRxiv, a preprint journal, and announced the results today ahead of peer-reviewed publication.

 

UPDATE, June 29, 2022: The research described in this press release has now been published in the peer-reviewed journal Contemporary Clinical Trials.

 

Erin McCreary release“Before we launched OPTIMISE-C19, only a small percentage of eligible patients were receiving monoclonal antibody treatment,” said lead author Erin McCreary, Pharm.D., UPMC infectious diseases pharmacist and Pitt clinical assistant professor of medicine. “Now, we’re able to offer monoclonal antibodies in the context of a clinical trial at every single one of our available treatment sites—resulting in a 7.5-fold increase in the number of eligible patients receiving this treatment. That level of outreach and access is virtually unprecedented, allowing us to build a foundation to roll-out future treatments quickly and safely within our learning health system.”

 

Monoclonal antibodies are potent versions of the natural defense that our bodies build to fight off an infection. By giving monoclonal antibodies to newly infected people, they can immediately start neutralizing and eliminating the virus, preventing it from infecting cells and causing damage. Previous research by UPMC and others found that monoclonal antibodies significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization and death when given soon after infection. 

 

Derek Angus release“The whole world is in a race to tame the virus that causes COVID-19,” said study co-author Derek Angus, M.D., M.P.H., UPMC’s chief innovation officer and distinguished professor and chair of Pitt’s Department of Critical Care Medicine. “If we get COVID-19, monoclonal antibodies are currently our best bet to keep ourselves and our loved ones alive and out of the hospital. In our quest for a cure, we’ve had the good fortune to have multiple options available, leaving doctors with the question: Which one is best for my patient? Right now, the answer is that the best option is the one you can give your patient fastest.”

 

In February 2021, UPMC partnered with the White House COVID-19 Response Team to expand clinical use of monoclonal antibodies and evaluate their comparative effectiveness.

 

The OPTIMISE-C19 trial randomizes the allocation of the monoclonal antibody treatments that were granted emergency use authorization (EUA) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to patients who qualify for them. All patients in the trial receive monoclonal antibody treatment, are followed for 28 days and their outcomes compared. 

 

UPMC randomized either Eli Lilly or Regeneron’s combination monoclonal antibody treatment to 1,935 patients from March 10 to June 25, 2021. The results were pulled for analysis after the federal government stopped distributing Lilly’s monoclonal antibody treatment due to lower laboratory effectiveness against the Gamma and Beta variants of the virus. 

 

The first results of OPTIMISE-C19 show that before Delta became the predominant strain in the U.S., both Lilly and Regeneron’s combination monoclonal antibody treatments performed well in keeping patients with COVID-19 alive and out of the hospital in a geographic region of Alpha variant predominance. Safety also was similar, with very few serious complications due to the treatment among UPMC patients. 

 

While data were pulled for analysis, GSK and Vir Biotechnology’s monoclonal antibody, sotrovimab, was granted an EUA and incorporated into UPMC’s OPTIMISE-C19 trial for comparison against Regeneron’s treatment. 

 

David Huang release“That’s the beauty of an adaptive learning health system trial,” said senior author and principal investigator David Huang, M.D., M.P.H., an intensivist at UPMC and professor of critical care medicine, emergency medicine, and clinical and translational science at Pitt. “As new treatments are authorized, we can immediately begin offering them to patients and collect randomized data to inform future treatment protocols. We can then compare outcomes as the virus evolves and new variants emerge.”

 

Delta is now the predominant strain of COVID-19 in the communities UPMC serves. UPMC offers monoclonal antibodies to people who have tested positive for COVID-19, have had symptoms for 10 days or less and meet other FDA eligibility criteria. Certain people who have been exposed to COVID-19 also can receive monoclonal antibodies as a preventive treatment, to keep them from contracting the virus. More information can be found at www.upmc.com/antibodytreatment or by calling 866-804-5251. 

 

Additional authors on this research are J. Ryan Bariola, M.D., Tami Minnier, M.S., Richard J. Wadas, M.D., Judith A. Shovel, B.S.N., Debbie Albin, B.S., Oscar C. Marroquin, M.D., Kevin E. Kip, Ph.D., Kevin Collins, M.B.A., Mark Schmidhofer, M.D., Mary Kay Wisniewski, M.A., David A. Nace, M.D., Colleen Sullivan, M.H.A., Meredith Axe, B.S., Russell Meyer, M.B.A., Alexandra Weissman, M.D., William Garrard, Ph.D., Stephen Koscumb, B.S., Octavia M. Peck-Palmer, Ph.D., Alan Wells, M.D., Robert D. Bart, M.D., Anne Yang, M.D., Tina Khadem, Pharm.D., Kelsey Linstrum, M.S., Stephanie K. Montgomery, M.S., Daniel Ricketts, M.T., Jason Kennedy, M.S., Caroline J. Pidro, B.S., Ghady Haidar, M.D., Graham M. Snyder, M.D., Bryan J. McVerry, M.D., Christopher W. Seymour, M.D., and Paula L. Kip, Ph.D., all of UPMC, Pitt or both; and Lindsay Berry, Ph.D., Scott Berry, Ph.D., Amy Crawford, Ph.D., and Anna McGlothin, Ph.D., all of Berry Consultants. Donald M. Yealy, M.D., UPMC’s chief medical officer and professor and chair of Pitt’s Department of Emergency Medicine, provided data and safety monitoring for the trial.

 

The U.S. government provided the monoclonal antibody treatments reported in this manuscript.
PHOTO INFO: (click images for high-res versions)

 

CREDIT ALL: UPMC

 

Top:

CAPTION: Erin McCreary, Pharm.D., UPMC infectious diseases pharmacist and University of Pittsburgh clinical assistant professor of medicine.

 

Middle:

CAPTION: Derek Angus, M.D., M.P.H., UPMC’s chief innovation officer and distinguished professor and chair, Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh.

 

Bottom:

CAPTION: David Huang, M.D., M.P.H., intensivist at UPMC and professor of critical care medicine, emergency medicine, and clinical and translational science, University of Pittsburgh.

UPMC
200 Lothrop Street Pittsburgh, PA 15213

412-647-8762 800-533-8762

Patients And Visitors
  • Find a Doctor
  • Locations
  • Pay a Bill
  • Patient & Visitor Resources
  • Disabilities Resource Center
  • Services
  • Medical Records
  • No Surprises Act
  • Price Transparency
  • Financial Assistance
  • Classes & Events
  • Health Library
Health Care Professionals
  • Physician Information
  • Resources
  • Education & Training
  • Departments
  • Credentialing
Newsroom
  • Newsroom Home
  • Inside Life Changing Medicine Blog
  • News Releases
About
  • Why UPMC
  • Facts & Stats
  • Supply Chain Management
  • Community Commitment
  • Financials
  • Supporting UPMC
  • HealthBeat Blog
  • UPMC Apps
  • UPMC Enterprises
  • UPMC Health Plan
  • UPMC International
  • Nondiscrimination Policy
Life changing is...
Follow UPMC
  • Contact Us
  • Website/Email Terms of Use
  • Medical Advice Disclaimer
  • Privacy Information
  • Active Privacy Alerts
  • Sitemap
© 2025 UPMC I Affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences Supplemental content provided by Healthwise, Incorporated. To learn more, visit healthwise.org
Find Care
Providers
Video Visit
Portal Login