STAT Covid-19 Drugs and Vaccines Tracker has an excellent chart explaining current research on Treatments and Vaccines.
Live meta-analysis and evidence synthesis of potential therapies for COVID19
(Scroll down for vaccine development and sites with further information.)
Therapeutic drug development
As of today (May 8) there is only one drug confirmed to be (at least somewhat) helpful for treating Covid-19: remdesivir (an intravenous antiviral drug developed by Gilead designed to slow down the spread of a virus in the human body). Other promising therapies so far appear to be convalescent plasma and blood thinners.
STAT: Giving blood thinners to severely ill Covid-19 patients is gaining ground (May 6, 2020)
- “Treating Covid-19 patients with medicines to prevent blood clots might help reduce deaths in patients on ventilators, based on new observational data.”
- “A team from Mount Sinai Health System in New York on Wednesday reported better results for hospitalized Covid-19 patients who received anticoagulant drugs compared to patients who didn’t.”
c&en: How big pharma firms are quietly collaborating on new coronavirus antivirals (May 1, 2020)
c&en: Cell studies suggest some repurposed drugs could block replication of SARS-CoV-2
Gilead: Remdesivir Clinical Trials (April 2020)
STAT: Gilead says critical study of Covid-19 drug shows patients are responding to treatment (April 29, 2020)
- This is “the first treatment shown to improve outcomes in patients infected with” Covid-19.
- “[T]he NIAID study, which was not expected to be released so soon, was by far the most important and rigorously designed test of remdesivir in Covid-19. The study compared remdesivir to placebo in 800 patients…”
- Remdesivir is an intravenous antiviral drug designed to slow down the spread of a virus in the body.
Nature: Hopes rise on coronavirus drug remdesivir (April 29, 2020)
- The NIAID results put a new sheen on remdesivir. “It may not be the wonder drug that everyone’s looking for, but if you can stop some patients from becoming critically ill, that’s good enough”
- Remdesivir works by gumming up an enzyme that some viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, use to replicate. In February, researchers showed that the drug reduces viral infection in human cells grown in a laboratory.
The Lancet: Remdesivir in adults with severe COVID-19: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial
Science: An orally bioavailable broad-spectrum antiviral inhibits SARS-CoV-2 in human airway epithelial cell cultures and multiple coronaviruses in mice (April 6, 2020)
NIH: Antiviral remdesivir prevents disease progression in monkeys with COVID-19 (April 17, 2020)
- “Early treatment with the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir significantly reduced clinical disease and damage to the lungs of rhesus macaques infected with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, according to National Institutes of Health scientists.”
STAT: Early peek at data on Gilead coronavirus drug suggests patients are responding to treatment (April 16, 2020)
- “[S]ome of the anecdotes are dramatic”. This means that although the results are not yet official, there is good evidence (good but inconclusive evidence) from a trial at a Chicago hospital that remdesivir is saving lives and reducing the time that patients spend at the hospital.”
CR: Doctors on the Front Lines Are Testing New Therapies to Treat COVID-19 (April 15, 2020)
- An excellent summary by Consumer Reports, simply explained, of the current state of drug development.
JAMA: Pharmacologic treatments for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) A Review (April 13, 2020)
- “The speed and volume of clinical trials launched to investigate potential therapies for COVID-19 highlight both the need and capability to produce high-quality evidence even in the middle of a pandemic. No therapies have been shown effective to date.”
WHO: “Solidarity” clinical trial for COVID-19 treatments (April 2020)
CNN: How a 100-year-old vaccine for tuberculosis could help fight the novel coronavirus (April 10, 2020)
NYT: 7 Answers to Questions About the Malaria Drug Trump Keeps Pushing (April 9, 2020)
- There are still many unanswered questions about hydroxychloroquine and it is possible that it is dangerous to use when certain conditions develop that Covid-19 causes.
NPR: Promising Drug On The Horizon For COVID-19 (April 6, 2010)
- EIDD-2801 is a pill that will hopefully keep the virus from making copies of itself.
STAT: GlaxoSmithKline and Vir aim to take on Covid-19 with antibodies and CRISPR (April 6, 2020)
- “Antibody drugs could be used in three possible ways: to prevent people at high risk, such as healthcare workers, from ever becoming infected; to prevent those infected from developing severe respiratory problems that can make Covid-19 … deadly; and to treat people who are already in respiratory distress.”
Tsinghua and partners to develop neutralising antibodies against COVID-19 (April 1, 2020)
- “Researchers … have identified various diverse and potent neutralising monoclonal antibodies that are claimed to have therapeutic potential against SARS CoV-2. These antibodies have been characterised from coronavirus patients in China who have recovered from their infection …”
Chloroquine, Ibuprofen and Beyond: Doctors Discuss Latest Treatments, and Treatment Rumors, For COVID-19 (April 2, 2020)
Every Vaccine and Treatment in Development for COVID-19, So Far (April 1, 2020)
FDA-approved drugs could help fight COVID-19 (March 19, 2020)
Science: Some Clinical Trial Data (March 19, 2020)
NYT: A Promising Treatment for Coronavirus Fails (March 18, 2020)
- “There is no solid evidence yet that anything works, but the epidemic is moving so fast that doctors are trying approaches where even preliminary data suggests there may be a benefit. Many feel they are on their own to develop treatment protocols. Federal health authorities like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend supportive care, but have said there is no evidence yet to support antiviral drugs or treatments for inflammation…For critically ill patients suffering from intense inflammatory reactions, called a cytokine storm, some centers are trying a drug called tocilizumab.”
Vaccine development
STAT: Infect volunteers with Covid-19 in the name of research? A proposal lays bare a minefield of issues (May 1, 2020)
Nature: The race for coronavirus vaccines: a graphical guide (April 28, 2020)
NYT: In Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine, an Oxford Group Leaps Ahead (April 27, 2020)
- “As scientists at the Jenner Institute prepare for mass clinical trials, new tests show their vaccine to be effective in monkeys.”
- “[W]ith an emergency approval from regulators, the first few million doses of their vaccine could be available by September … if it proves to be effective.”
Oxford… : Oxford COVID-19 vaccine begins human trial stage (April 24, 2020)
COVID-19 vaccine protects monkeys from new coronavirus, Chinese biotech reports (April 23, 2020)
An Early Look at Vaccines for COVID-19 (April 14, 2020)
Inovio begins first human test of experimental coronavirus vaccine (April 7, 2020)
- There are several different types of vaccines being developed by different companies at the same time. This one contains DNA.
DW: The Race for Vaccines VIDEO (April 6, 2020)
Speed coronavirus vaccine testing by deliberately infecting volunteers? Not so fast, some scientists warn (March 31, 2020)
- Testing by infecting volunteers with a weakened virus would be a way to accelerate the development even further, but we need to think this through carefully.
Volunteers in Seattle get first doses of trial vaccine for COVID-19 (March 17, 2020)
- See photos of them here. We should be thankful for their volunteering!
Coronavirus: US volunteers test first vaccine (March 17, 2020)
- Note that animal testing for safety, which is normally done, was not done. This is one way that the development of a vaccine is being accelerated. This vaccine candidate includes genetic material known as mRNA that contains instructions for cells to create molecules that will hopefully suppress the virus.
For further information
U. S. National Library of Medicine ClinicalTrials.gov: See clinical trials for drugs and devices for Covid-19
global COVID-19 Clinical Trial Tracker
COVID-19 Clinical Trial Tracker
Wikipedia: COVID-19 drug development