Bamlanivimab/etesevimab for COVID-19: real-time meta analysis of 17 studies

Table 2 summarizes the results for all stages combined, with different exclusions, and for specific outcomes. Table 3 shows results by treatment stage. Figure 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 show forest plots for random effects meta-analysis of all studies with pooled effects, mortality results, ICU admission, hospitalization, progression, recovery, cases, viral clearance, and peer reviewed studies.

To avoid bias in the selection of studies, we analyze all non-retracted studies. Here we show the results after excluding studies with major issues likely to alter results, non-standard studies, and studies where very minimal detail is currently available. Our bias evaluation is based on analysis of each study and identifying when there is a significant chance that limitations will substantially change the outcome of the study. We believe this can be more valuable than checklist-based approaches such as Cochrane GRADE, which may underemphasize serious issues not captured in the checklists, overemphasize issues unlikely to alter outcomes in specific cases (for example, lack of blinding for an objective mortality outcome, or certain specifics of randomization with a very large effect size), or be easily influenced by potential bias. However, they can also be very high quality.

The studies excluded are as below. Figure 15 shows a forest plot for random effects meta-analysis of all studies after exclusions.

Cooper, unadjusted results with no group details.

Rubin, significant unadjusted confounding possible.

Heterogeneity in COVID-19 studies arises from many factors including:

The time between infection or the onset of symptoms and treatment may critically affect how well a treatment works. For example an antiviral may be very effective when used early but may not be effective in late stage disease, and may even be harmful. Oseltamivir, for example, is generally only considered effective for influenza when used within 0-36 or 0-48 hours McLean, Treanor. Baloxavir studies for influenza also show that treatment delay is critical — Ikematsu report an 86% reduction in cases for post-exposure prophylaxis, Hayden show a 33 hour reduction in the time to alleviation of symptoms for treatment within 24 hours and a reduction of 13 hours for treatment within 24-48 hours, and Kumar report only 2.5 hours improvement for inpatient treatment.

Figure 16 shows a mixed-effects meta-regression for efficacy as a function of treatment delay in COVID-19 studies from 56 treatments, showing that efficacy declines rapidly with treatment delay. Early treatment is critical for COVID-19.

Details of the patient population including age and comorbidities may critically affect how well a treatment works. For example, many COVID-19 studies with relatively young low-comorbidity patients show all patients recovering quickly with or without treatment. In such cases, there is little room for an effective treatment to improve results (as in López-Medina).

Efficacy may differ significantly depending on the effect measured, for example a treatment may be very effective at reducing mortality, but less effective at minimizing cases or hospitalization. Or a treatment may have no effect on viral clearance while still being effective at reducing mortality.

There are many different variants of SARS-CoV-2 and efficacy may depend critically on the distribution of variants encountered by the patients in a study. For example, the Gamma variant shows significantly different characteristics Faria, Karita, Nonaka, Zavascki. Different mechanisms of action may be more or less effective depending on variants, for example the viral entry process for the omicron variant has moved towards TMPRSS2-independent fusion, suggesting that TMPRSS2 inhibitors may be less effective Peacock, Willett.

Effectiveness may depend strongly on the dosage and treatment regimen.

The use of other treatments may significantly affect outcomes, including anything from supplements, other medications, or other kinds of treatment such as prone positioning.

The quality of medications may vary significantly between manufacturers and production batches, which may significantly affect efficacy and safety. Williams analyze ivermectin from 11 different sources, showing highly variable antiparasitic efficacy across different manufacturers. Xu analyze a treatment from two different manufacturers, showing 9 different impurities, with significantly different concentrations for each manufacturer.

We present both pooled analyses and specific outcome analyses. Notably, pooled analysis often results in earlier detection of efficacy as shown in Figure 17. For many COVID-19 treatments, a reduction in mortality logically follows from a reduction in hospitalization, which follows from a reduction in symptomatic cases, etc. An antiviral tested with a low-risk population may report zero mortality in both arms, however a reduction in severity and improved viral clearance may translate into lower mortality among a high-risk population, and including these results in pooled analysis allows faster detection of efficacy. Trials with high-risk patients may also be restricted due to ethical concerns for treatments that are known or expected to be effective.

Pooled analysis enables using more of the available information. While there is much more information available, for example dose-response relationships, the advantage of the method used here is simplicity and transparency. Note that pooled analysis could hide efficacy, for example a treatment that is beneficial for late stage patients but has no effect on viral replication or early stage disease could show no efficacy in pooled analysis if most studies only examine viral clearance. While we present pooled results, we also present individual outcome analyses, which may be more informative for specific use cases.

Currently, 38 of the treatments we analyze show statistically significant efficacy or harm, defined as ≥10% decreased risk or >0% increased risk from ≥3 studies. 91% of treatments showing statistically significant efficacy/harm with pooled effects have been confirmed with one or more specific outcomes, with a mean delay of 3.3 months. When restricting to RCTs only, 57% of treatments showing statistically significant efficacy/harm with pooled effects have been confirmed with one or more specific outcomes, with a mean delay of 3.9 months.

The distribution of studies will alter the outcome of a meta analysis. Consider a simplified example where everything is equal except for the treatment delay, and effectiveness decreases to zero or below with increasing delay. If there are many studies using very late treatment, the outcome may be negative, even though early treatment is very effective. This may have a greater effect than pooling different outcomes such as mortality and hospitalization. For example a treatment may have 50% efficacy for mortality but only 40% for hospitalization when used within 48 hours. However efficacy could be 0% when used late.

All meta analyses combine heterogeneous studies, varying in population, variants, and potentially all factors above, and therefore may obscure efficacy by including studies where treatment is less effective. Generally, we expect the estimated effect size from meta analysis to be less than that for the optimal case. Looking at all studies is valuable for providing an overview of all research, important to avoid cherry-picking, and informative when a positive result is found despite combining less-optimal situations. However, the resulting estimate does not apply to specific cases such as early treatment in high-risk populations. While we present results for all studies, we also present treatment time and individual outcome analyses, which may be more informative for specific use cases.

Publishing is often biased towards positive results. Trials with patented drugs may have a financial conflict of interest that results in positive studies being more likely to be published, or bias towards more positive results. For example with molnupiravir, trials with negative results remain unpublished to date (CTRI/2021/05/033864 and CTRI/2021/08/0354242). For bamlanivimab/etesevimab, there is currently not enough data to evaluate publication bias with high confidence.

One method to evaluate bias is to compare prospective vs. retrospective studies. Prospective studies are more likely to be published regardless of the result, while retrospective studies are more likely to exhibit bias. For example, researchers may perform preliminary analysis with minimal effort and the results may influence their decision to continue. Retrospective studies also provide more opportunities for the specifics of data extraction and adjustments to influence results.

Figure 18 shows a scatter plot of results for prospective and retrospective studies. Prospective studies show 39% [-24‑70%] improvement in meta analysis, compared to 57% [27‑74%] for retrospective studies, suggesting possible positive publication bias, with a non-significant trend towards retrospective studies reporting higher efficacy.

Funnel plots have traditionally been used for analyzing publication bias. This is invalid for COVID-19 acute treatment trials — the underlying assumptions are invalid, which we can demonstrate with a simple example. Consider a set of hypothetical perfect trials with no bias. Figure 19 plot A shows a funnel plot for a simulation of 80 perfect trials, with random group sizes, and each patient's outcome randomly sampled (10% control event probability, and a 30% effect size for treatment). Analysis shows no asymmetry (p > 0.05). In plot B, we add a single typical variation in COVID-19 treatment trials — treatment delay. Consider that efficacy varies from 90% for treatment within 24 hours, reducing to 10% when treatment is delayed 3 days. In plot B, each trial's treatment delay is randomly selected. Analysis now shows highly significant asymmetry, p < 0.0001, with six variants of Egger's test all showing p < 0.05 Egger, Harbord, Macaskill, Moreno, Peters, Rothstein, Rücker, Stanley. Note that these tests fail even though treatment delay is uniformly distributed. In reality treatment delay is more complex — each trial has a different distribution of delays across patients, and the distribution across trials may be biased (e.g., late treatment trials may be more common). Similarly, many other variations in trials may produce asymmetry, including dose, administration, duration of treatment, differences in SOC, comorbidities, age, variants, and bias in design, implementation, analysis, and reporting.

Summary statistics from meta analysis necessarily lose information. As with all meta analyses, studies are heterogeneous, with differences in treatment delay, treatment regimen, patient demographics, variants, conflicts of interest, standard of care, and other factors. We provide analyses by specific outcomes and by treatment delay, and we aim to identify key characteristics in the forest plots and summaries. Results should be viewed in the context of study characteristics.

Some analyses classify treatment based on early or late administration, as done here, while others distinguish between mild, moderate, and severe cases. Viral load does not indicate degree of symptoms — for example patients may have a high viral load while being asymptomatic. With regard to treatments that have antiviral properties, timing of treatment is critical — late administration may be less helpful regardless of severity.

Details of treatment delay per patient is often not available. For example, a study may treat 90% of patients relatively early, but the events driving the outcome may come from 10% of patients treated very late. Our 5 day cutoff for early treatment may be too conservative, 5 days may be too late in many cases.

Comparison across treatments is confounded by differences in the studies performed, for example dose, variants, and conflicts of interest. Trials affiliated with special interests may use designs better suited to the preferred outcome.

In some cases, the most serious outcome has very few events, resulting in lower confidence results being used in pooled analysis, however the method is simpler and more transparent. This is less critical as the number of studies increases. Restriction to outcomes with sufficient power may be beneficial in pooled analysis and improve accuracy when there are few studies, however we maintain our pre-specified method to avoid any retrospective changes.

Studies show that combinations of treatments can be highly synergistic and may result in many times greater efficacy than individual treatments alone Alsaidi, Andreani, Biancatelli, De Forni, Gasmi, Jeffreys, Jitobaom, Jitobaom (B), Ostrov, Thairu. Therefore standard of care may be critical and benefits may diminish or disappear if standard of care does not include certain treatments.

This real-time analysis is constantly updated based on submissions. Accuracy benefits from widespread review and submission of updates and corrections from reviewers. Less popular treatments may receive fewer reviews.

No treatment, vaccine, or intervention is 100% available and effective for all current and future variants. Efficacy may vary significantly with different variants and within different populations. All treatments have potential side effects. Propensity to experience side effects may be predicted in advance by qualified physicians. We do not provide medical advice. Before taking any medication, consult a qualified physician who can compare all options, provide personalized advice, and provide details of risks and benefits based on individual medical history and situations.

1 of 17 studies combine treatments. The results of bamlanivimab/etesevimab alone may differ. 1 of 6 RCTs use combined treatment.

Bamlanivimab/etesevimab is an effective treatment for COVID-19. Statistically significant lower risk is seen for mortality, ICU admission, hospitalization, recovery, cases, and viral clearance. 13 studies from 11 independent teams (all from the same country) show statistically significant improvements. Meta analysis using the most serious outcome reported shows 50% [27‑66%] lower risk. Results are similar for higher quality and peer-reviewed studies and slightly worse for Randomized Controlled Trials. Results are consistent with early treatment being more effective than late treatment. Results are robust — in exclusion sensitivity analysis 7 of 17 studies must be excluded to avoid finding statistically significant efficacy in pooled analysis.

Efficacy is highly variant dependent. In Vitro studies suggest a lack of efficacy for omicron Liu, Sheward, VanBlargan. mAb use may create new variants that spread globally Focosi. mAb use with variants can be associated with prolonged viral loads, clinical deterioration, and immune escape Choudhary.

ACTIV-3/TICO: Late stage RCT of LY-CoV555 added to remdesivir, showing non-statistically significant higher mortality with the addition of LY-CoV555.

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Bariola: Retrospective 234 patients receiving bamlanivimab and 234 matched controls, showing lower hospitalization and mortality with treatment. Greater benefit was seen with administration within 4 days of their positive COVID-19 test.

Confounding by treatment propensity. This study analyzes a population where only a fraction of eligible patients received the treatment. Patients receiving treatment may be more likely to follow other recommendations, more likely to receive additional care, and more likely to receive additional treatments that are not tracked in the data (e.g., nasal/oral hygiene c19early.org (B), c19early.org (C), vitamin D c19early.org (D), etc.) — either because the physician recommending bamlanivimab/etesevimab also recommended them, or because the patient seeking out bamlanivimab/etesevimab is more likely to be familiar with the efficacy of additional treatments. Therefore, these kind of studies may overestimate the efficacy of treatments.

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Chew: RCT 317 outpatients in the USA showing faster viral load and inflammatory biomarker decline, but no significant differences in clinical outcomes.

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Cooper: Retrospective 2,879 patients and matched controls in the USA, showing significantly lower mortality and hospitalization with bamlanivimab, bamlanivimab/etesevimab, and casirivimab/imdevimab. There was significantly lower hospitalization with casirivimab/imdevimab compared to bamlanivimab or bamlanivimab/etesevimab. PSM and multivariate analysis is only provided for all treatments combined.

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Corwin: Retrospective 780 bamlanivimab patients and 5,337 patients not receiving treatment, showing lower hospitalization and ER visits with treatment.

Confounding by treatment propensity. This study analyzes a population where only a fraction of eligible patients received the treatment. Patients receiving treatment may be more likely to follow other recommendations, more likely to receive additional care, and more likely to receive additional treatments that are not tracked in the data (e.g., nasal/oral hygiene c19early.org (B), c19early.org (C), vitamin D c19early.org (D), etc.) — either because the physician recommending bamlanivimab/etesevimab also recommended them, or because the patient seeking out bamlanivimab/etesevimab is more likely to be familiar with the efficacy of additional treatments. Therefore, these kind of studies may overestimate the efficacy of treatments.

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Dale: Retrospective 75 COVID+ patients in a skilled nursing facility in the USA, 56 treated within a median of 2 days from symptom onset with bamlanivimab, showing significantly lower mortality with treatment.

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Delasobera: Retrospective 438 patients in the USA, 253 treated with bamlanivimab, showing significantly lower hospitalization with treatment.

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Dougan: RCT showing improved viral clearance with bamlanivimab/etesevimab combined with bebtelovimab. Results refer to the placebo controlled portion of the trial.

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Dougan (B): Results from the BLAZE-1 RCT of combined bamlanivimab/etesevimab, showing significantly lower mortality and combined mortality/hospitalization with treatment. NCT04427501.

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Ganesh: Retrospective 2,335 bamlanivimab patients and 2,335 PSM controls in the USA, showing significantly lower hospitalization with treatment.

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Gottlieb: RCT for LY-CoV555 monotherapy and LY-CoV555/LY-CoV016 combination therapy with 592 patients showing lower hospitalization/ER visits with treatment.

For viral load at day 11, a statistically significant reduction was found with combination therapy but not monotherapy.

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Kip: Retrospective 2,571 patients treated with mAbs in the USA, and 5,135 control patients, showing lower combined mortality/hospitalization for bamlanivimab, bamlanivimab/etesevimab, casirivimab/imdevimab, sotrovimab, and bebtelovimab, with statistical significance only for casirivimab/imdevimab.

Confounding by treatment propensity. This study analyzes a population where only a fraction of eligible patients received the treatment. Patients receiving treatment may be more likely to follow other recommendations, more likely to receive additional care, and more likely to receive additional treatments that are not tracked in the data (e.g., nasal/oral hygiene c19early.org (B), c19early.org (C), vitamin D c19early.org (D), etc.) — either because the physician recommending bamlanivimab/etesevimab also recommended them, or because the patient seeking out bamlanivimab/etesevimab is more likely to be familiar with the efficacy of additional treatments. Therefore, these kind of studies may overestimate the efficacy of treatments.

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Lilly: Press release on the BLAZE-2 trial at nursing homes showing significantly lower symptomatic COVID-19 with treatment.

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Priest: Retrospective 379 bamlanivimab patients and 379 matched controls in the USA, showing no significant differences with treatment.

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Rubin: Retrospective database analysis of 1257 PCR+ outpatients with age ≥65, BMI≥35, 191 receiving bamlanivimab via lottery. Authors note that the alpha variant was most common during the study period, and that efficacy against other variants can be much lower. Authors note confounding due to prioritization in the lottery and differential reporting in the database.

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Webb: Retrospective 479 patients treated with bamlanivimab showing lower mortality, hospital admission, and emergency department visits with treatment. Authors incorrectly state that "no other COVID-19 therapies for ambulatory patients have proven effective".

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Wilden: Retrospective 395 patients in the USA receiving casirivimab/imdevimab or bamlanivimab, showing lower risk of hospitalization with treatment, statistically significant for casirivimab/imdevimab.

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We performed ongoing searches of PubMed, medRxiv, ClinicalTrials.gov, The Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, Collabovid, Research Square, ScienceDirect, Oxford University Press, the reference lists of other studies and meta-analyses, and submissions to the site c19early.org. Search terms were bamlanivimab, etesevimab, filtered for papers containing the terms COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2. Automated searches are performed every few hours with notification of new matches. All studies regarding the use of bamlanivimab/etesevimab for COVID-19 that report a comparison with a control group are included in the main analysis. Sensitivity analysis is performed, excluding studies with major issues, epidemiological studies, and studies with minimal available information. This is a living analysis and is updated regularly.

We extracted effect sizes and associated data from all studies. If studies report multiple kinds of effects then the most serious outcome is used in pooled analysis, while other outcomes are included in the outcome specific analyses. For example, if effects for mortality and cases are both reported, the effect for mortality is used, this may be different to the effect that a study focused on. If symptomatic results are reported at multiple times, we used the latest time, for example if mortality results are provided at 14 days and 28 days, the results at 28 days are used. Mortality alone is preferred over combined outcomes. Outcomes with zero events in both arms were not used (the next most serious outcome is used — no studies were excluded). For example, in low-risk populations with no mortality, a reduction in mortality with treatment is not possible, however a reduction in hospitalization, for example, is still valuable. Clinical outcome is considered more important than PCR testing status. When basically all patients recover in both treatment and control groups, preference for viral clearance and recovery is given to results mid-recovery where available (after most or all patients have recovered there is no room for an effective treatment to do better). If only individual symptom data is available, the most serious symptom has priority, for example difficulty breathing or low SpO₂ is more important than cough. When results provide an odds ratio, we computed the relative risk when possible, or converted to a relative risk according to Zhang. Reported confidence intervals and p-values were used when available, using adjusted values when provided. If multiple types of adjustments are reported including propensity score matching (PSM), the PSM results are used. Adjusted primary outcome results have preference over unadjusted results for a more serious outcome when the adjustments significantly alter results. When needed, conversion between reported p-values and confidence intervals followed Altman, Altman (B), and Fisher's exact test was used to calculate p-values for event data. If continuity correction for zero values is required, we use the reciprocal of the opposite arm with the sum of the correction factors equal to 1 Sweeting. Results are expressed with RR < 1.0 favoring treatment, and using the risk of a negative outcome when applicable (for example, the risk of death rather than the risk of survival). If studies only report relative continuous values such as relative times, the ratio of the time for the treatment group versus the time for the control group is used. Calculations are done in Python (3.11.5) with scipy (1.11.1), pythonmeta (1.26), numpy (1.25.0), statsmodels (0.14.0), and plotly (5.15.0).

Forest plots are computed using PythonMeta Deng with the DerSimonian and Laird random effects model (the fixed effect assumption is not plausible in this case) and inverse variance weighting. Mixed-effects meta-regression results are computed with R (4.1.2) using the metafor (3.0-2) and rms (6.2-0) packages, and using the most serious sufficiently powered outcome.

We received no funding, this research is done in our spare time. We have no affiliations with any pharmaceutical companies or political parties.

We have classified studies as early treatment if most patients are not already at a severe stage at the time of treatment (for example based on oxygen status or lung involvement), and treatment started within 5 days of the onset of symptoms. If studies contain a mix of early treatment and late treatment patients, we consider the treatment time of patients contributing most to the events (for example, consider a study where most patients are treated early but late treatment patients are included, and all mortality events were observed with late treatment patients). We note that a shorter time may be preferable. Antivirals are typically only considered effective when used within a shorter timeframe, for example 0-36 or 0-48 hours for oseltamivir, with longer delays not being effective McLean, Treanor.

Effect extraction follows pre-specified rules as detailed above and gives priority to more serious outcomes. For pooled analyses, the first (most serious) outcome is used, which may differ from the effect a paper focuses on. Other outcomes are used in outcome specific analyses.

Effect extraction follows pre-specified rules as detailed above and gives priority to more serious outcomes. For pooled analyses, the first (most serious) outcome is used, which may differ from the effect a paper focuses on. Other outcomes are used in outcome specific analyses.

Effect extraction follows pre-specified rules as detailed above and gives priority to more serious outcomes. For pooled analyses, the first (most serious) outcome is used, which may differ from the effect a paper focuses on. Other outcomes are used in outcome specific analyses.

Supplementary Data