Remdesivir and baricitinib combo reduce recovery time in Covid -19 patients: NEJM

Researchers have found in a large, international study of hospitalized patients that adding the antiinflammatory drug baricitinib to remdesivir slightly speeds up COVID-19 recovery time, especially among patients receiving supplemental oxygen without invasive ventilation, according to a The study has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The ACTT-2 trial opened on May 8, 2020 and enrolled a total of 1,033 volunteer participants at sites in eight countries. Once enrolled, participants were randomized to receive a treatment regimen of either oral baricitinib tablets and intravenous (IV) remdesivir or oral placebo tablets and IV remdesivir.

In the study, the combination of baricitinib and remdesivir reduced median time to recovery in hospitalized COVID-19 patients from eight days to seven days. Patients who required high-flow oxygen or non-invasive ventilation during their hospitalization appeared to have had the largest benefit: their median time to recovery was shortened from 18 days to ten days. In addition, participants' conditions at day 15 of the study (as measured by an eight-category ordinal scale which ranked the severity of their condition) was significantly improved when they received the two therapeutics combined. Recipients of the two treatments also had slightly fewer serious adverse effects.Combination treatment was also associated with better improvement in clinical status. Moreover serious adverse events occurred less frequently in the combination group.