Canadian COVID-19 treatment trial receives additional $3.5 million in federal funding

Canadian researchers are participating in a major international clinical trial that aims to find the best treatment for COVID-19. The World Health Organization is coordinating this global project, known as the Solidarity trial, which involves more than 100 other countries.

Canada’s participation in the trial will give Canadians hospitalized with COVID-19 access to the drugs under study and will contribute to the evidence being gathered by the WHO from all the country studies on which drugs are safe to give patients and most effective in treating COVID-19.

The federal government has announced funding of $3.5 million, through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, to scale up the Canadian arm of the Solidarity trial named Canadian Treatments for COVID-19 (CATCO). This new investment adds to initial funding of more than $950,000 that the research team received from CIHR in early March 2020.

The CATCO trial is led by Dr. Srinivas Murthy at the University of British Columbia and BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver and Dr. Robert Fowler at Sunnybrook Health Sciences in Toronto. With the new funding from CIHR, Dr. Murthy, Dr. Fowler and their team will expand the number of hospitals participating in the trial. They will enroll patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and, for now, will test the effectiveness of several treatment options in improving survival. New drugs and therapies will be added into the trial as they become available for further study as part of this global mega-trial, where the world has come together to answer questions together, in global solidarity.

Read more about the CATCO trial on Sunnybrook's website »

Read more about the funding announcement on the UBC website »

Media contact

Sybil Millar
Communications advisor
sybil.millar@sunnybrook.ca