Large-scale COVID-19 treatment clinical trial launched in UK

A large randomized clinical trial of potential novel coronavirus (COVID-19) treatments is underway in the United Kingdom.

 The Randomized Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy (RECOVERY) trial has recruited 1,000 patients from 132 hospitals and thousands more are expected to join. The trial is testing a number of medicines recommended y an expert panel advising the Chief Medical Officer for England. They include lopinavir-ritonavir, commonly used to treat human immunodeficiency virus; dexamethasone, a type of steroid use in a range of conditions to reduce inflammation; and hydroxychloroquine, a treatment for malaria.

Adult patients who have been admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 are being invited to take part in the trial. The trial is specially designed so that as further medicines are identified, they can be added to the study “within days”.

The trial, which is being sponsored by the University of Oxford in England, is an Urgent Public Health Research Study scheduled to receive $2.6m of rapid research response funding from the U.K. Research and Innovation and the U.K. Department of Health and Social Care, according to a statement made by researchers leading the trial.

“The RECOVERY trial will provide much-needed evidence on the best care for patients with COVID-19,” said Peter Horby, MD, PhD, professor in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford, in a statement. “The more patients that are enrolled, the sooner we will know how best to treat this disease.”

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