Covid-19 roundup: Con­va­les­cent plas­ma flops in UK tri­al; New York Gov. An­drew Cuo­mo seeks to pur­chase vac­cines di­rect­ly from Pfiz­er

The UK’s RE­COV­ERY tri­al is no longer re­cruit­ing pa­tients for the con­va­les­cent plas­ma arm af­ter an in­de­pen­dent da­ta mon­i­tor­ing com­mit­tee found no sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment in mor­tal­i­ty — an­oth­er nail in the cof­fin for Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s so-called “his­toric break­through” treat­ment.

The RE­COV­ERY tri­al spans sev­er­al po­ten­tial Covid-19 treat­ments, in­clud­ing  Re­gen­eron’s an­ti­body cock­tail, and the an­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ries colchicine and tocilizum­ab. But con­va­les­cent plas­ma missed its pri­ma­ry end­point in a pre­lim­i­nary analy­sis, and the DMC “saw no con­vinc­ing ev­i­dence that fur­ther re­cruit­ment would pro­vide con­clu­sive proof of worth­while mor­tal­i­ty ben­e­fit ei­ther over­all or in any pre-spec­i­fied sub­group,” ac­cord­ing to a re­port by the tri­al’s co-chairs, Pe­ter Hor­by and Mar­tin Lan­dray.

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