Three weeks.
That’s how quickly Sunnybrook was able to help launch an unprecedented clinical trial across more than 50 centres in Canada and the United States.
And it’s all because of the overwhelming support we received from our community of donors.
Launching a trial of this scale and complexity normally takes upward of two years. But we were able to move forward in a previously unheard-of timeframe thanks to donors who recognized the urgency of developing a new COVID-19 treatment and were encouraged by the promise of convalescent plasma.
The promise of plasma
The Convalescent Plasma for COVID-19 Research (CONCOR-1) trial is testing the therapeutic use of plasma — a straw-yellow component of blood that contains antibodies — from people who have recovered from COVID-19. That plasma is then given to patients who are hospitalized with the virus. The hope? Antibodies found in the plasma of recovered patients will bind to the virus in critically ill patients and effectively neutralize the disease.
“This is a once-in-a-100-year opportunity to answer the question of whether convalescent plasma works in a pandemic,” says Sunnybrook transfusion specialist Dr. Jeannie Callum, the trial’s co-lead. “This is something that will be useful for our great-grandchildren when a pandemic eventually occurs again, and another scientific contribution Canada can take pride in during this global fight against COVID-19.”
CONCOR-1 was recently awarded a $3-million grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. This grant would not have been possible without the initial support of our generous community.
You can read more about one such donor, Richard Carl, who not only became the first person in Toronto to donate his blood plasma but also helped to raise more than $1 million in a matter of weeks toward the trial, including a gift from his own family foundation. To read Richard’s full story, click here.
