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Scientists still lack conclusive evidence that the two anti-Covid drugs administered to Donald Trump are clinically effective.
UK researchers note that both drugs, remdesivir and REGN-COV2, have yet to complete the large-scale randomized trials necessary to fully demonstrate their ability to counteract Covid-19 in patients. And many have criticized the US authorities for failing to carry out such trials. This has undermined efforts to find effective drugs to treat people affected by the disease.
“If President Trump improves, we still don’t know if those drugs played a role in his recovery or not. They may have been critically important or played no role at all, ”said Professor Martin Landray of the University of Oxford. “That means when we go to treat the next hospitalized patient with Covid, we still won’t know the usefulness of those drugs.”
In contrast, Britain has adopted a policy of conducting blind randomized trials to test the efficacy of drugs through the Catch-Up Testing program, founded by Landray and Peter Horby, also from the University of Oxford. Compare the responses of patients receiving a treatment with those receiving a placebo. In this way, British scientists pointed to the effectiveness of dexamethasone, a cheap steroid, in treating Covid, while demonstrating the futility of the much touted drug hydroxychloroquine.
Last week, Recovery researchers launched their trials to test the effectiveness of REGN-COV2 when the first five patients, hospitalized with complications from Covid, received the drug. REGN-COV2 is a combination of two man-made antibodies, called monoclonal antibodies, and over the next several weeks, thousands more patients will be recruited in the UK in a trial of its efficacy.
Horby said Saturday that he believed REGN-COV2 had real potential. “Of the drugs that are available, it is one of the most promising,” he said. And Landray shared this optimism. “It has real potential. However, today all we know is that it reduces viral load, the amount of virus in a patient. That tells us that this is a drug that is bad for the virus. But we still don’t know if it is really good for the patient. Could it have side effects? Is it better for children, the elderly, or people who use ventilators? We need randomized trials to find out. “
Trials of Trump’s other drug, remdesivir, have also produced encouraging results, although again they are not conclusive. A trial in China earlier this year had to stop because it couldn’t recruit enough patients, while a later, larger trial in the US showed that those who received the drug spent less time on ventilators and than those who received the drug had slightly better survival rates. than the given placebos. However, the difference was not statistically significant.
“Remdesivir seems to speed up recovery time for patients, but do more patients really survive? We don’t know, ”added Landray. The answer to that question is now likely to be provided by a World Health Organization trial of remdesivir, which is expected to be completed in a few weeks.
The UK recovery program is conducting randomized trials of several other potential Covid treatments, including the antibiotic azithromycin and an anti-inflammatory drug known as Tocilizumab, as well as ‘convalescent plasma’ derived from blood plasma collected from Covid patients in Recovery. Results from these are expected in the coming weeks.
“If we can find a couple of treatments that address the worst excesses of Covid-19, we could make the disease much more manageable, something more like seasonal flu, and that would make a huge difference in our lives,” added Landray. “The only way to do this is by conducting careful randomized trials.”
