Eli Lilly announced Monday it initiated human trials for a possible new coronavirus treatment using a blood sample from one of the first patients in the United States to recover from the disease.

“Antibody treatments like the one being studied here hold promise to be effective medical countermeasures against this deadly infection,” said Dr. Mark Mulligan, the director of the vaccine center at New York University Langone Health, who is one of the doctors working in the study with Eli Lilly.