As vaccinations in the U.S. and the U.K. continue to speed along, trials in these countries should start to ramp back up more quickly.
This is according to a new report out by life sciences analytics firm GlobalData, which resumed trials and saw a speeding up in the coming months as new vaccines appear to be easing the threat of COVID in these countries, and allowing more sites to open.
In its latest data, the firm said that, as of Feb. 22, the number of resumed trials has increased to 955. Out of these trials, just over 68% are currently recruiting participants, while 14% have completed recruitment but are still ongoing, and fewer that 1% of trials have yet to start recruiting subjects.
The U.S., which has been ramping up its vaccination efforts in the past few months, has the highest number of resumed trials at 70.2%, followed by the U.K. at 9.3%. This is followed by Spain at 7%, France at 6.9%, and Germany at 6.5%, though these have seen far more sluggish vaccination rates due to low supply, and France and Germany especially are also grappling with a third wave that is causing more lockdowns.
“Since early March 2020, more than 500 companies have publicly announced disruptions to their planned and ongoing clinical trials due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Priya Nair, analyst, trials intelligence analyst at GlobalData.
“However, with the global rollout of three main COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Moderna, and the latest approval for Johnson & Johnson, active cases of COVID-19 worldwide are decreasing steadily and this has led to a very slight, steady increase in clinical trial activity.
“Initially, the general trend showed a gradual increase in the overall percentage of trials for each trial status, the biggest of which has been seen in ongoing, recruiting trials and ongoing, not recruiting trials. However, between January 25 and February 22, ongoing, recruiting trials decreased further from 71.9% to 68.3%, and completed trials increased from 12.8% to 14.%.”