It takes Lawrence Tabak about 15 minutes to rattle off all the potential COVID-19 treatments being tested in the clinical trial programme he oversees: a lengthy, tongue-twisting list that includes drugs to disarm the virus, to soothe inflammation and to stop blood clots. Over the past two years, the ACTIV programme, run by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), has included more than 30 studies — 13 of them ongoing — of therapeutic agents chosen from a list of 800 candidates. Several of the studies are due to report results in the first half of the year.

And that’s just in his programme; hundreds more are in progress around the world. Whether those results are positive or negative, Tabak says, 2022 is poised to provide some much-needed clarity on how best to treat COVID-19. “The next three to four months are, we hope, going to be very exciting,” says Tabak, acting director of the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland. “Even when a trial does not show efficacy, that’s still incredibly important information. It tells you what not to use.”

Source: Hundreds of COVID trials could provide a deluge of new drugs