The RECOVERY Trial: One year on

The Randomised Evaluation of COVid-19 thERapY (RECOVERY) trial was officially launched on 23 March 2020. It is the world's largest COVID-19 drug trial. Thanks to the ground-breaking work of RECOVERY, clinicians treating patients hospitalised with severe COVID-19 now have two treatments that are known to improve survival. From having no known effective drugs when the pandemic first erupted, patients are now offered treatments that have been robustly proven to reduce death and improve other outcomes, such as the length of hospital stay and the need for mechanical ventilation. The trial's Chief Investigators, Professor Peter Horby and Professor Martin Landray, designed the trial quickly to investigate the effects of previously known drugs on COVID-19. The trial was rolled out in hospitals across the UK, a partnership that proved essential when treatments were found to work on COVID-19. Working so closely with the NHS allowed patients to immediately have access to effective treatments when the study data confirmed what was working, and alternatively to stop any treatment that was found to be ineffective.