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Novartis has decided to suspend the COVID-19 hydroxychloroquine clinical trial due to registration problems that made completing the trials impossible, the company said in a statement released Friday night.
The problem “reduced the likelihood that the clinical trial team could collect meaningful data in a reasonable period of time,” the report said.
“No safety concerns have been reported and there are no findings from the effectiveness study,” the company said in a statement.
Hydroxychloroquine and its related compound Chloroquine are commonly used to treat malaria and have antiviral potential, so these substances were considered as possible treatment options for the virus at the start of the pandemic.
Despite the drug’s known side effects, many prominent figures, including United States President Donald Trump, have begun to publicly mention the drug as a cure for COVID-19, although a vaccine against the drug has not yet been invented. Viruses and other potentially effective drugs are only just beginning to be recognized.
In April, Novartis announced that it would support a phase III clinical trial involving approximately 440 US patients using hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 in hospitalized patients. The study was agreed with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
However, earlier this month, US authorities suspended its use, and this week the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it would suspend its ongoing studies on hydroxychloroquine because the drug failed to reduce death rates.
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