The Vancouver-based biotech firm partnered with Eli Lilly to create an antibody treatment, Bamlanivimab. But experts in the company’s home country have rejected it based on what they say is thin scientific evidence and a difficult delivery method. Eli Lilly said the evidence is promising and it has more study results coming. (The Globe and Mail)

Talking point: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Health Canada both granted the drug emergency-use authorization in November 2020. “If this were any other disease, there would be no way that anyone would say we should be using this treatment,” said Dr. Andrew Morris, an infectious-diseases physician and medical director of the antimicrobial stewardship program at UHN and Sinai Health System. He added “it’s a coin toss” on whether the treatment will help or hurt the most vulnerable patients that people are proposing the treatment be used on. Eli Lilly spokesman Michael McDougall called the lack of use of the drug in Canada “deeply disappointing.” AbCellera, which closed a record-breaking IPO with gross proceeds of about US$555.5 million in December, did not comment on the story. The company’s shares traded at a high of US$46.55 Friday.