AstraZeneca surges on Covid-19 drug trial

AstraZeneca shares surged on Tuesday after the pharmaceuticals giant said it will start a clinical trial to assess the potential of Calquence (acalabrutinib) in the treatment of the exaggerated immune response associated with Covid-19 in severely ill patients.

The goal of the trial, called Calavi, is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of adding Calquence - a blood cancer treatment - to best supportive care (BSC) to reduce mortality and the need for assisted ventilation in patients with life-threatening coronavirus symptoms.

The large, multicentre, global, randomised trial uses a two-part patient-centric design developed in record time to accelerate data capture and analysis. Part one evaluates the addition of Calquence to BSC versus BSC alone in patients hospitalised with the virus who are not in the intensive care unit. Part two evaluates the addition of Calquence to BSC in a cohort of patients in the ICU.

José Baselga, executive vice president of oncology R&D, said: "With this trial we are responding to the novel insights of the scientific community and hope to demonstrate that adding Calquence to best supportive care reduces the need to place patients on ventilators and improves their chances of survival.

"This is the fastest launch of any clinical trial in the history of AstraZeneca."

The Calavi trial is expected to open for enrolment in the coming days in the US and several European countries.

At 1350 BST, the shares were up 6.1% at 7,552p.