Effective medicines have been developed or repurposed to treat COVID-19, but they are too often not accessible or affordable, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The coalition is conducting a very short survey on COVID-19 medicine availability. Survey responses will provide a snapshot of access to inform a webinar on COVID-19 therapeutics that the coalition is planning to hold in the next few months. The survey is anonymous and can be filled out quickly, as it has only five multiple-choice questions. For those who wish, there is also space to make additional comments.

A joint study team from MORU and IDDO plans to examine current national treatment recommendations to investigate the level of variation and whether they are consistent with WHO guidelines for the pharmacological prevention and treatment of COVID-19.  If you can help the team by providing your country’s current national therapeutics guidelines for COVID-19, please contact us.

The coalition’s Social Science Working Group is calling for abstracts for a special issue of Frontiers in Public Health entitled ‘Exploring Innovative Models to Improve Vaccines and Therapeutics Equity During Epidemics.’ Submissions are invited from a wide range of disciplines are invited, including law, economics, political science, ethics, and those with relevant knowledge of vaccine and therapeutics R&D and manufacturing.

Four members of the COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition participated in a high-level session on data sharing at the Geneva Health Forum on 4 May. The lively, moderated discussion covered the need for data sharing in a pandemic, the importance and challenge of data protection laws, and potential levers for increasing rapid data sharing.

The PRIORITISE study developed and validate three clinical prediction models that could help identify patients presenting with moderate Covid-19 who could safely be managed in the community. The PRIORITISE team would like to hear from groups interested in collaborating to further validate the findings.

The coalition is looking for a part-time Therapeutics Review Consultant to systematically review data or evidence on COVID-19 therapeutics and produce a weekly summary report. The Therapeutics Review Consultant will be a vital link in the compilation of existing evidence, which will provide an open access source of information for researchers and inform the discussions of the Therapeutics Working Group. 

Following a workshop on access to COVID-19 vaccines, experts from the Global Health Strategy Group for Digital Health and AI for health (an initiative of the University of Oxford), and the Supply & Market Dynamics; Medicine Quality Working Group of the COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition just issued a report capturing challenges affecting supply, distribution, and access issues for people in low-resource settings.

The COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition is calling for nominations for members of a new Therapeutics Working Group. In low-resource settings, there is relatively little COVID-19 therapeutics research taking place. There is also uncertainty on the future affordability and availability of any proven therapeutics in such settings. A platform to discuss COVID-19 therapeutics in low-resource settings and promote relevant research and priorities would be beneficial. A new coalition working group has been proposed, to fill this gap.

Excessive bureaucracy has been identified as an obstacle to the conduct of clinical research in many settings. Complex requirements and lengthy processes often delay and sometimes prevent the initiation of research work. In this survey, we sought to gain high-level insights into how researchers and health professionals regard the effects of the various bureaucratic processes and their impact on the conduct of COVID- 19 clinical research.

The COVID Moonshot, a non-profit, open-science consortium of scientists from around the world dedicated to the discovery of globally affordable and easily-manufactured antiviral drugs against COVID-19 and future viral pandemics.