Roche Looking for New Place to Test COVID-19 Pill

Roche is looking for another location to carry out trials of its pill to fight COVID-19.

The Swiss drugmaker said on Wednesday,  plummeting case numbers in Britain made it difficult to find enough patients for its study.

Roche and Boston-based partner Atea Pharmaceuticals are hoping their AT-527 pill could offer an anti-viral therapy to treat COVID-19 patients that would be easier to administer and cheaper than other prospective treatments.

The head of Roche’s pharmaceutical division, Bill Anderson said, “Britain’s success in reducing case numbers with a swift vaccination programme and strict lockdown meant it was taking longer than expected to collect data from the trial there.

“There’s just simply not enough patients to enroll, with the speed we were hoping for.

“That’s been one of the challenges since the beginning of the pandemic, you set up sites where there’s a lot of COVID, and then by the time you’re ready to enrol, the pandemic has moved somewhere else and you’re sort of chasing it,” Anderson said.

He did not identify other locations where Roche might set up trials.

Roche, Atea, is trialling the medicine in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19. It is also separately trialling the medicine in hospitals with patients with more severe cases.

Kamila/Reuters