Remdesivir for the treatment of patients in hospital with COVID-19 in Canada: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Background: The role of remdesivir in the treatment of patients in hospital with COVID-19 remains ill defined in a global context. The World Health Organization Solidarity randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluated remdesivir in patients across many countries, with Canada enrolling patients using an expanded data collection format in the Canadian Treatments for COVID-19 (CATCO) trial. We report on the Canadian findings, with additional demographics, characteristics and clinical outcomes, to explore the potential for differential effects across different health care systems.

Methods: We performed an open-label, pragmatic RCT in Canadian hospitals, in conjunction with the Solidarity trial. We randomized patients to 10 days of remdesivir (200 mg intravenously [IV] on day 0, followed by 100 mg IV daily), plus standard care, or standard care alone. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality. Secondary outcomes included changes in clinical severity, oxygen- and ventilator-free days (at 28 d), incidence of new oxygen or mechanical ventilation use, duration of hospital stay, and adverse event rates. We performed a priori subgroup analyses according to duration of symptoms before enrolment, age, sex and severity of symptoms on presentation.

Results: Across 52 Canadian hospitals, we randomized 1282 patients between Aug. 14, 2020, and Apr. 1, 2021, to remdesivir (n = 634) or standard of care (n = 648). Of these, 15 withdrew consent or were still in hospital, for a total sample of 1267 patients. Among patients assigned to receive remdesivir, in-hospital mortality was 18.7%, compared with 22.6% in the standard-of-care arm (relative risk [RR] 0.83 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.67 to 1.03), and 60-day mortality was 24.8% and 28.2%, respectively (95% CI 0.72 to 1.07). For patients not mechanically ventilated at baseline, the need for mechanical ventilation was 8.0% in those assigned remdesivir, and 15.0% in those receiving standard of care (RR 0.53, 95% CI 0.38 to 0.75). Mean oxygen-free and ventilator-free days at day 28 were 15.9 (± standard deviation [SD] 10.5) and 21.4 (± SD 11.3) in those receiving remdesivir and 14.2 (± SD 11) and 19.5 (± SD 12.3) in those receiving standard of care (p = 0.006 and 0.007, respectively). There was no difference in safety events of new dialysis, change in creatinine, or new hepatic dysfunction between the 2 groups.

Interpretation: Remdesivir, when compared with standard of care, has a modest but significant effect on outcomes important to patients and health systems, such as the need for mechanical ventilation. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, no. NCT04330690.

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: Alexandra Binnie reports receiving research grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Physicians Services Incorporated Foundation. Sergio Borgia reports receiving honoraria from Gilead Sciences and GSK. Yiorgos Alexandros Cavayas reports receiving a grant from CIHR. Matthew Cheng reports receiving grants from the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity and from CIHR, during the conduct of the study (payments made to the institution). Dr. Cheng also reports receiving personal fees from AstraZeneca, outside the submitted work; and from Nplex Biosciences and GEn1E lifesciences (in the form of stock options for being a member of the scientific advisory board) outside the submitted work. Dr. Cheng co-founded Kanvas Biosicences and owns equity in the company, and reports 3 patents pending. John Conly reports receiving grants from CIHR, Pfizer, the World Health Organization (WHO), Sunnybrook Research Institute, University of Calgary, and the Calgary Health Foundation. Dr. Conly also reports receiving support to attend the Think Tank Meeting 2019. Dr. Conly is a member and Chair of the WHO Infection Prevention and Control Research and Development Expert Group for COVID-19, a member of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) Ad-hoc COVID-19 IPC Guidance Development Group, and a member of the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Group. Madeleine Durand reports receiving grants from CIHR and the Fonds Recherche du Québec–Santé (FRQS). Rob Fowler reports receiving a grant from CIHR for the CATCO trial and is the H. Barrie Fairley Professor of Critical Care at the University Health Network. Michael Fralick reports receiving multiple grants from CIHR and support from grants from the Canadian military for clinical trials to identify treatments for COVID-19 (payments made to institution). Dr. Fralick is a paid consultant for a start-up company called Proof DiagnosticsDx, which has created a point-of-care testing device using CRISPR for COVID-19. Holly Hoang reports receiving payment from CATCO Sunnybrook to fund research assistant (payment made to institution) and a research grant from Covenant Health Research Centre. Marina Klein reports receiving grants from Gilead, ViiV Healthcare, Merck and AbbVie for investigator-initiated studies, and consulting fees from Gilead, ViiV Healthcare, Merck and AbbVie, all outside the submitted work. Todd Lee reports receiving operating grants from CIHR and McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity (MI4), and research salary support from FRQS. Alexandra Lostun reports receiving per-case funding to cover the costs of enrolling patients (paid to institution, North York General Hospital). François Carrier reports receiving grants from the Instituts de recherche en santé du Canada and the Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program, and a grant and salary support from FRQS. Marlee McGuinty reports receiving speaking fees from Merck. Srinivas Murthy reports receiving a grant from CIHR, during the conduct of the study, and is the Health Research Foundation and Innovative Medicines Canada Chair in Pandemic Preparedness Research. Conar O’Neil reports receiving conference sponsorship from Gilead Sciences, and is a member of a Gilead Sciences advisory board. Jesse Papenburg reports receiving a grant from CIHR, during the conduct of the study, as well as research grants and contracts from AbbVie and research contracts (site investigator for clinical trial) from MedImmune, Merck and Sanofi Pasteur. Dr. Papenburg has received consulting fees from Merck for an ad hoc advisory board meeting, and honoraria for presentations from Seegene, AbbVie and AstraZeneca. Dr. Papenburg is also a voting member of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization. Ken Kuljit S. Parhar reports receiving a CIHR project grant, Alberta Innovates grant and Alberta Health Innovation Implementation and Spread grant (all paid to institution). Seema Nair Parvathy reports receiving funding from St. Joseph’s Health Care Foundation and London Health Sciences Foundation. Moira Rushton-Marovac reports receiving advisory board honoraria from Gilead. Marina Salvadori reports being an employee of the Public Health Agency of Canada. Makeda Semret reports receiving support from the McGill MI4 for the clinical research platform through which CATCO was supported at the McGill University Health Centre. Ameeta Singh reports receiving consulting fees from Gilead for membership of an advisory board. Ranjani Somayaji reports receiving contract research funding from Sunnybrook Research Institute, University of Calgary and Calgary Health Foundation, and clinical research funding from CIHR and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Dr. Somayaji also reports participation on an oncovir data monitoring safety board. Darrell Tan reports receiving grants from AbbVie (in-kind drug only) and Gilead (in-kind drug and grants to institution), and a contract between GSK and the institution for clinical trials. Alain Tremblay reports receiving contract research funding from the Sunnybrook Research Institute, and grants for COVID-19 clinical trials from the University of Calgary and Calgary Health Foundation. Alexis Turgeon reports receiving a grant from CIHR. Jason Weatherald reports receiving grants (paid to institution) and consulting fees (paid to Dr. Weatherald) from Janssen and Actelion, as well as honoraria and travel support from Janssen. Dr. Weatherald has served on advisory boards for Janssen and Acceleron (paid) and on a Data Safety Monitoring Board for Université Laval (unpaid). Dr. Weatherald also reports membership of the Medical Advisory Committee of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association of Canada, and is a shareholder of Precision Lung Consultants and Diagnostics. Cedric Yansouni reports receiving grants from FRQS and consulting fees from Medicago Inc. Dr. Yansouni also reports participation in a Medicago Inc. Independent Data Monitoring Committee and held the role of scientific advisor for the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force. No other competing interests were declared.

© 2022 CMA Impact Inc. or its licensors.

Figures

Figure 1:

Flow chart showing enrolment, randomization and inclusion of patients in analysis. Note: IP = investigational product, IV = intravenous. *One patient with 2 reasons.

Figure 2:

Days from randomization to mortality: censored at hospital discharge, 15 or 29 d, whichever is observed last. Note: CI = confidence interval, HR = hazard ratio.

Figure 3:

Forest plot of relevant subgroups. Note: The p value is from the test of the interaction between the treatment and any subgroup variable. HFNC = high-flow nasal cannulae.

Figure 4:

Clinical severity on the World Health Organization Ordinal Scale at day 15 after randomization (0–10, with 10 being death).