Unknown Infection & Immunity NIHR-supported project Lungs & Breathing

AGILE-ACCORD: ACelerating COVID-19 dRug Development - Phase I/II trial platform. A Randomized, Multicentre, Seamless, Adaptive Phase I/II Platform Study to Determine the Optimal Dose, Safety and Efficacy of Multiple Candidate Agents for the Treatment of COVID-19

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A new clinical trial platform will test experimental drugs for COVID-19 in patients, starting with safety checks in small groups before expanding to measure whether the drugs actually work. The problem is stark: no approved drugs existed for COVID-19 when this trial began, and while large trials like RECOVERY tested existing medicines repurposed for the disease, almost no early-phase trials were set up to evaluate genuinely new treatments. The AGILE-ACCORD platform fills that gap by allowing drugs that have only laboratory data or very limited patient data to enter human testing quickly. Each candidate drug is first given to small cohorts of six patients to check for safety at different doses, then the best-performing dose is tested in roughly 40 patients for signs of efficacy. If successful, this platform could accelerate the pipeline of new antiviral drugs for COVID-19, feeding promising candidates into larger late-stage trials. More broadly, the master protocol design—a single trial framework that can slot in multiple drugs over time—could become a template for rapid drug testing in future pandemics, reducing the months-long delay between identifying a candidate and starting human trials.

View original technical description
In late 2019 a novel coronavirus-induced disease (COVID-19) emerged in humans in Wuhan, China (SARS-CoV-2) which is now a pandemic. Of those who are admitted to hospital most get better, but some may need oxygen or mechanical ventilation before they do so, and a small number do not get better and die. The virus is highly contagious and is causing an enormous strain on NHS resources. There are currently no approved drugs to treat COVID-19. There are currently late phase platform trials looking at repurposing existing drugs (e.g. RECOVERY) but there are a lack of trials investigating new treatments.\n\nThe AGILE-ACCORD phase 1/2 platform master protocol allows incorporation of new potential treatments (candidates) that either only have laboratory data or limited patient data to indicate they may work to treat COVID-19. This early phase platform will look closely at dose, safety and evidence that they work before entering these other large phase trials.\n\nCandidates will be added into the trial (at varying times) via candidate-specific trial protocols of a master protocol. Patients will be randomised between candidate and control with 2:1 allocation in favour of the candidate. Each dose will be assessed for safety sequentially in cohorts of 6 patients, with more patients receiving the optimal dose to assess efficacy and safety. The patient population for this trial is adult patients (?18 years) who have laboratory-confirmed infection with SARS-CoV-2. It will include both severe and mild-moderate patients. Each candidate-specific trials are expected to recruit ~40 patients.

Researchers

Sanjay Bhagani (Principal Investigator)

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