RE: Disagree26 Sep 2020 14:23
Jest reading through the Preparing for winter report. This may have been touched on before but bearing in mind this was published prior to July 20th results the following statement regarding treatments some of the comments now appear highly applicable to the Synairgen situation.
"A number of other trials are in progress, and only when these are reported will it be known what the efficacy and thus the demand will be and in what stage of disease the medicines may be best used.309 The long-term control of COVID-19 will require a pipeline of promising therapies."
and then....." The challenges for treatment and/or prevention of COVID-19 with respect to medicines will depend on the timely reporting of trials, licencing, evaluation and commissioning of medicines with accelerated access schemes, as well as mechanisms to deploy these nationally at pace. Part of this is in place with the Research to Access Pathway to Investigational Drugs – COVID-19 (RAPID-C19) led by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), NICE, MHRA, and NHS England; however, the manufacture and supply of drugs needs to be modelled in a global context, and with consideration of winter surges. In addition, a bottom up approach to operationalise commissioning decisions at pace is required, which will be more urgent in winter months with added pressures.
Early signals should accelerate negotiations with pharmaceutical companies, including generic manufacturers. Schemes, such as the six-week rolling stock (in place for no-deal Brexit) and others, should be considered to help maintain supplies while avoiding stockpiling more than is required. This may be particularly applicable to the drugs currently in trial.
Horizon scanning by bodies (e.g. RAPID-C19) can pick up on early signals to ensure a winter supply chain is in place given any modelling as described above. This needs to occur in tandem with early liaison with bodies that can facilitate expert review and ensure the operationalisation of commissioning policies (e.g. formulary committees)"
Report can be found here:
https://acmedsci.ac.uk/more/news/prepare-now-for-a-winter-covid-19-peak-warns-academy-of-medical-sciences
I think we aren't too far away from big news!