Landscape of coronavirus disease 2019 clinical trials: New frontiers and challenges

Background/Aim The number of coronavirus disease 2019 deaths and cases continues to increase globally. Novel therapies are urgently needed to treat patients with coronavirus disease 2019. We sought to provide a critical review of trials designed during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Our primary goal was to provide a critical review of the landscape of clinical trials designed to address the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Specifically, we were interested in assessing the design of phase II/III and phase III interventional trials. Methods We utilized the ClinicalTrials.gov database to include trials registered between 1 December 2019 and 11 April 2021 to survey the current landscape of clinical trials for coronavirus disease 2019. Variables extracted included: National Clinical Trial number, title, location, sponsor, study type, start date, completion date, gender group, age group, primary outcome, secondary outcome, overall status, and associated references. Results About 57% of studies were interventional, 14.5% were phase III trials, and the majority of the therapeutic trials included hospitalized patients. There were 52 primary composite outcomes and 285 unique interventions spanning 10 drug classes. The outcomes, disease severity, and comparators varied substantially across trials, and the trials were often too small to be definitive. Conclusion These findings are relevant as we strongly advocate for global coordination of efforts through the use of common platforms that enable harmonizing of endpoints, collection of common key variables and clear definition of disease severity to have clinically meaningful results from clinical trials.

Automated summary

Researchers conducted a critical review of clinical trials designed during the COVID-19 pandemic, using the ClinicalTrials.gov database to survey trials registered between December 1, 2019 and April 11, 2021. The results showed that a majority of the studies were interventional and focused on hospitalized patients, with varying outcomes, disease severity, and comparators. The researchers emphasized the importance of global coordination and common platforms to achieve clinically meaningful results from clinical trials.