Peter Horby, Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Chief Investigator for the trial, said: ‘Today we release the third set of results from the RECOVERY trial. These preliminary results show that for patients hospitalised with COVID-19 and not on a ventilator, lopinavir-ritonavir is not an effective treatment. In 100 days, the RECOVERY trial has provided results enabling change in global practice three times. This extraordinary national effort has shown that two drugs used to treat hospitalised COVID patients throughout the world, hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir-ritonavir, do not improve survival, whilst one drug that was not recommended, dexamethasone, saves lives.’
No clinical benefit from use of lopinavir-ritonavir in hospitalised COVID-19 patients studied in RECOVERY
30 June 2020
The RECOVERY trial was established in March as a randomised clinical trial to test a range of potential treatments for COVID-19, including lopinavir-ritonavir, an antiviral treatment commonly used to treat HIV. There was no significant difference in the primary endpoint of 28-day mortality, and the results were consistent in different subgroups of patients. There was also no evidence of beneficial effects on the risk of progression to mechanical ventilation or length of hospital stay. The trial Steering Committee concluded that there is no beneficial effect of lopinavir-ritonavir in patients hospitalised with COVID-19 and closed that treatment arm.
