Professor Peter Horby, co-Chief Investigator of the RECOVERY trial, said ‘The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, in fact it is getting worse, and we need to keep pushing to find better treatments. The fatality rate in patients hospitalised with COVID-19 remains far too high and I believe we can and must bring it down. Baricitinib will be the tenth potential COVID-19 treatment to be tested through RECOVERY and we will continue testing new drugs as fast as we possibly can.’
Baricitinib to be investigated as a possible treatment for COVID-19 in the RECOVERY trial
NDM-CGHR
3 February 2021
Baricitinib – an anti-inflammatory treatment for rheumatoid arthritis– is being investigated in the RECOVERY trial, the world’s largest clinical trial of treatments for patients hospitalised with COVID-19, taking place in 177 hospital sites across the UK and with over 33,000 patients recruited so far. As an anti-inflammatory, baricitinib may block the signalling activity of cytokine molecules which contribute to the hyper-inflammatory state seen in severe COVID-19. It is thought that baricitinib may act also have some anti-viral activity. The other treatments currently being investigated in the RECOVERY trial are Regeneron’s antibody cocktail, Aspirin and Colchicine.
