LONDON – The U.K. Recovery trial has added a fourth drug to the list of therapies it has shown are effective in treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients, demonstrating the JAK inhibitor Olumiant (baricitinib) reduces the risk of death by 13% in seriously ill patients. That effect is in addition to treatment with dexamethasone, which became standard of care after the Recovery trial showed it reduced mortality by one-third in patients on ventilators.
LONDON – A pledge to “bottle” improvements made in setting up and running clinical trials during the pandemic has materialized in the formation of Protas Ltd., a nonprofit promising to stage large-scale phase III clinical trials in common diseases for less than one tenth the current cost. Protas will design and run randomized phase III studies of new and repurposed drugs in conditions including depression, dementia, heart, lung and respiratory conditions, arthritis and cancer.
LONDON – After a number of equivocal small studies, the U.K. Recovery trial has applied its heft to turn in statistically significant evidence that the rheumatoid arthritis treatment Roactemra (tocilizumab) reduces mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
DUBLIN – Genentech has succeeded where Sanofi SA and its partner, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., have failed, in obtaining some sort of a positive signal from a clinical trial of an interleukin-6 (IL-6) inhibitor in COVID-19.
