UK’s RECOVERY Trial Halts Enrollment for Gout Drug

The UK’s RECOVERY trial, which is assessing multiple potential COVID-19 treatments, has stopped enrollment in its arm evaluating colchicine, an anti-inflammatory drug used to treat gout.

Colchicine was added to the trial late last year as a potential treatment for severely ill hospitalized COVID-19 patients suffering from inflammation of the lungs and requiring mechanical ventilation (DID, Dec. 1, 2020).

But researchers halted enrollment last week, after the trial’s independent data monitoring committee reviewed the drug’s efficacy data and found colchicine offered no clinical benefit.

The committee reviewed data on patients randomized to receive either colchicine or standard care in a primary analysis derived from 11,162 patients, 94 percent of whom had been treated with a corticosteroid like dexamethasone.

The analysis found there was “no significant difference in the primary endpoint of 28-day mortality” between colchicine and standard care.

The RECOVERY trial “has already identified two anti-inflammatory drugs — dexamethasone and tocilizumab — that improve the chances of survival for patients with severe COVID-19,” noted Martin Landray, joint chief investigator from the University of Oxford. “So, it is disappointing that colchicine, which is widely used to treat gout and other inflammatory conditions, has no effect in these patients.”

The RECOVERY trial has enrolled 38,650 participants across 180 clinical sites.to evaluate multiple COVID-19 treatments in hospitalized patients. Enrollment will continue for other trial arms, which includes subgroups evaluating Roche’s arthritis drug Actemra (tocilizumab), Regeneron’s antibody cocktail (casirivimab and imdevimab), dimethyl fumarate and aspirin. ― Jason Scott