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Choosing drugs for UK COVID-19 treatment trials

In 2020, the UK government funded a portfolio of platform trials to develop new treatments for COVID-19. A key feature was the independent prioritization of candidate drugs with central coordination to prevent duplication, accelerating recruitment to deliver definitive trial results. A similar approach could be used for non-communicable diseases where treatment advances have been limited.
By
  1. Patrick F. Chinnery

    1. Department of Clinical Neurosciences and MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.

  2. Marion Bonnet

    1. Division of Infection and Immunity, Cardiff University School of Medicine, Cardiff, UK.

  3. Alison Cave

    1. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, London, UK.

  4. Matthias P. Hofer

    1. Centre for Health Economics & Policy Innovation, Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London, UK.

  5. Alastair Lamb

    1. UK-CTAP secretariat, MRC (a part of UKRI), Swindon, UK.

  6. Glenn A. McConkey

    1. Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.

  7. Nicholas Medcalf

    1. Medicines Manufacturing Challenge Team, Innovate UK (a part of UKRI), Swindon, UK.

  8. Stephen P. Smith

    1. Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.

  9. Teresa Tsakok

    1. St John's Institute of Dermatology, King's College London, London, UK.

  10. Robert Watson

    1. Department of Oncology, MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.

  11. Steve Webster

    1. Cell Press, Elsevier, London Wall, London, UK.

  12. Tao You

    1. PK/PD Modelling and Simulation Team, UK-CTAP secretariat, MRC (a part of UKRI), Swindon, UK.

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In early 2020, SARS-CoV-2 led to an escalation of UK hospital admissions. The new virus had a poorly understood pathophysiology, leading to severe complications and high mortality in at-risk groups. At the time, no treatments were known to be effective at altering the disease course.

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Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 21, 81-82 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41573-021-00203-7

Acknowledgements

UK-CTAP is funded by UKRI and NIHR. P.F.C. is a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow (212219/Z/18/Z), and a UK NIHR Senior Investigator, who receives support from the Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit (MC_UU_00015/9), the Medical Research Council (MRC) International Centre for Genomic Medicine in Neuromuscular Disease (MR/S005021/1), the Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2018-408), an MRC research grant (MR/S035699/1) and an Alzheimer's Society Project Grant (AS-PG-18b-022). This research was supported by the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215-20014).

Disclaimer

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.

References

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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