The COVID-19 Antivirals and Therapeutics Taskforce

The DHSC-led COVID-19 Antivirals and Therapeutics Taskforce co-ordinates the end-to-end provision of treatments for coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK so that patients get access to safe and effective treatments as soon as possible.

Closure of the COVID-19 Antivirals and Therapeutics Taskforce on 31 March 2023

In line with the government’s strategy of living with COVID-19, the Antivirals and Therapeutics Taskforce stood down on 31 March 2023. Information on available coronavirus (COVID-19) treatments can be found on the NHS website.

About the taskforce

The Antivirals and Therapeutics Taskforce was responsible for the end-to-end provision of treatments for coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK.

The taskforce was responsible for:

  • identifying potential COVID-19 therapeutics
  • trialling these as part of an advanced programme of clinical trials
  • making effective treatments available to UK patients

The Antivirals and Therapeutics Taskforce amalgamated the Therapeutics Taskforce (established in April 2020) and the Antivirals Taskforce (established in April 2021) into a single taskforce from April 2022.

The Therapeutics Taskforce was established to drive forward efforts to ensure that the UK population would have access to clinically safe and effective treatments as soon as possible. From its inception it brought together key clinical, research and industry stakeholders to coordinate and provide oversight to identifying, procuring and deploying treatments for COVID-19

The Antivirals Taskforce worked with industry experts to identify, develop and procure novel oral antivirals (those in pill or capsule form) that patients can take promptly following infection.

The taskforce was led by acting director Charlotte Taylor. It was based in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and worked closely with:

  • the devolved administrations
  • arm’s length bodies
  • other government departments
  • key stakeholder groups
  • international partners

The taskforce’s key activities between April 2020 and March 2023 are summarised below, with links to further information.

Expert advice

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the taskforce worked with medical and scientific experts to make decisions on treatments.

This included the Research to Access Pathway for Investigational Drugs for COVID-19 (RAPID C-19), a multi-agency initiative set up in response to the pandemic that aimed to get treatments for COVID-19 to NHS patients quickly and safely. RAPID C-19 provided recommendations on which treatments should be prioritised for further research and for patient access. You can find out more about RAPID C-19 on NICE’s website.

The Therapeutics Clinical Review Panel was established to provide advice on the definition and revision of eligible cohorts for COVID-19 therapeutics. The Antivirals and Therapeutics Taskforce oversaw and provided secretariat support for the panel.

Read more about the Therapeutics Clinical Review Panel

The UK COVID-19 Therapeutics Advisory Panel (UK-CTAP) made recommendations on which therapeutic compounds should be studied through national publicly funded clinical trials, based on submissions from industry and academia. UK-CTAP helped prioritise research into the most promising therapeutics during the first year of the pandemic, before ceasing operations in September 2021. To find out more about UK-CTAP and its decisions, see Outcomes of the UK COVID-19 Therapeutics Advisory Panel (UK-CTAP) from UK Research and Innovation.

Clinical trials

During the pandemic, the taskforce supported the establishment of clinical trials that helped determine which treatments were most effective, as well as treatments that are not effective.

This included the RECOVERY trial which identified several effective treatments for hospitalised patients, including dexamethasone, PANORAMIC which is the largest community trial of its type and is researching the effectiveness of oral antivirals, and REMAP-CAP which is an international phase 3 trial and was focused during the pandemic on testing treatments in patients with severe COVID-19 infection in intensive care units.

For more information on these and other clinical trials and the results, see Clinical platform trials for coronavirus (COVID-19) treatments.

Access to treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the pandemic the taskforce helped make available treatments for hospitalised and non-hospitalised patients which helped save lives and prevent hospitalisation. These treatments included:

  • repurposed treatments including dexamethasone, tocilizumab, sarilumab, and baricitinib
  • antiviral treatments including remdesivir, nirmatrelvir and ritonavir, and molnupiravir
  • neutralising antibody treatments including casirivimab and imdevimab, and sotrovimab

The taskforce worked with the NHS and UKHSA, and devolved administrations to ensure UK patients could access treatments. These treatments were made available in hospitals and COVID-19 Medicines Delivery Units (CMDUs) in England, and equivalent arrangements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. For more information on arrangements that were in place between December 2019 and March 2023, see Access community-based treatments for coronavirus (COVID-19).

NICE appraisals of COVID-19 treatments

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has reviewed which treatments are cost-effective, and this will determine which treatments are made available through the NHS over the long-term, and which cohorts of patients will receive them. For more information, see NICE’s Therapeutics for people with COVID-19.

Currently available treatments and how to access them

There are a range of treatments for hospitalised and non-hospitalised patients, now widely used across the country to save lives and to prevent severe COVID-19.

Information on the treatments that are currently available through the NHS and how to access them can be found on the treatments for COVID-19 page on the NHS website.

Information is also available on the NHS website on the number of patients that have received treatments inside and outside of hospitals.

Preventative treatments

One of the key areas of focus for the taskforce was on scoping out prophylactic (preventative) treatments for high-risk patient groups.

This included work by the Therapeutics Clinical Review Panel to identify patient cohorts that could potentially benefit from these prophylactic treatments.

The taskforce received expert advice on potential treatments, including tixagevimab and cilgavimab (known as Evusheld). The expert advice recommended not proceeding with the purchase of this drug due to lack of evidence for its effectiveness against Omicron variants. This was a view that was subsequently adopted by the NICE Single Technology Appraisal review.

Read more about the clinical advice received for the evaluation of Evusheld.

On 2 March 2023, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) launched a landmark study to look at COVID-19 treatments and vaccinations in priority groups. This includes people who are immunocompromised and those who do not respond well to vaccination. The study will receive £2.8 million from DHSC via the NIHR and involve 3000 immunocompromised participants over 2 years.

Further information

The Antivirals and Therapeutics Taskforce has now closed. Links to the key NHS bodies that support access to COVID-19 treatments are below:

Freedom of information requests

For freedom of information requests, contact DHSC.

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