Colchicine shows promise as a treatment for at-home COVID-19 patients -- Recruitment of participants in the COLCORONA phase 3 study likely to end in 2020

MONTREAL, Nov. 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) today announced that the COLCORONA clinical trial will continue to recruit non-hospitalized adult patients with COVID-19 as recommended by the independent data monitoring committee (DMC), following a second interim analysis.

"With the dramatic rise in COVID-19 cases across the world, it is becoming even more critical that we continue to investigate treatments that can not only help those hospitalized with severe disease, but also those with less severe symptoms who are able to remain at home," said Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, Director of the Research Center at MHI, Professor of Medicine at the University of Montreal, and COLCORONA principal investigator. "We aim at completing patient recruitment in this large study within the next month and hope that colchicine will reduce the risk of COVID-19 complications."

COLCORONA is a contact-free, at-home, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study run out of Canada, the United States, Europe, South America, and South Africa. It aims to determine if colchicine can reduce the risk of serious complications linked to COVID-19. This is one of the few current large-scale studies of COVID-19 in which non-hospitalized patients can participate. Participants and physicians interested in COLCORONA can call the hotline at 1-877-536-6837.

COLCORONA is coordinated by the Montreal Health Innovations Coordinating Center (MHICC) and funded by the Government of Quebec, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH). CGI, Dacima and Pharmascience are also collaborators of COLCORONA.

The Montreal Heart Institute and its partners worldwide would like to thank all the investigators and the thousands of participants for their continued participation in the COLCORONA study.

For more information about the study, visit www.colcorona.net.

About the Montreal Heart Institute

Founded in 1954, the Montreal Heart Institute constantly aims for the highest standards of excellence in the cardiovascular field through its leadership in clinical and basic research, ultra-specialized care, professional training, and prevention. It houses the largest research center in Canada, the largest cardiovascular prevention center in the country, and the largest cardiovascular genetics center in Canada. The Institute is affiliated with the University of Montreal and has more than 2000 employees, including 245 doctors and more than 85 researchers.