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Pharmacy teams are being encouraged to support the ground-breaking Platform Adaptive trial of Novel antivirals for early treatment of Covid-19 In the Community (PANORAMIC) study by raising awareness among patients. The study aims to find out whether new antiviral treatments can help Covid-19 patients avoid hospital admission and support a quicker recovery. The PANORAMIC trial will allow researchers to gather data on the potential benefits of treatments to patients and will help the NHS to develop plans for rolling out the products to further patients in 2022. Anyone over the age of 50 or between 18 to 49 with certain underlying health conditions can participate in the trial after receiving a positive PCR or lateral flow test result for Covid-19. People who wish to participate in the trial can sign up themselves through the study's website and may be contacted by a member of the clinical team in a general practice that has been set up to deliver the PANORAMIC trial.

Researchers from the University of Oxford today (December 8) started recruiting for a clinical trial to test novel antiviral Covid-19 treatments for early use in the illness by people in the community and those who are at higher risk of complications. Partnering with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), colleagues in several UK universities, and the NHS UK-wide, the Platform Adaptive trial of NOvel antiviRals for eArly treatMent of Covid-19 In the Community (PANORAMIC), is a national priority trial, and will be open to participants from across the UK. The first treatment to be tested by the UK Antiviral Taskforce will be molnupiravir, a Covid antiviral pill already licensed by the MHRA. Britain became the first country in the world to approve molnupiravir, which was jointly developed by U.S.-based Merck & Co Inc and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, in November.

Three leading pharmacists - professor Mahendra Patel, Asif Aziz and Ade Williams - have been recognised in Queen Elizabeth's annual New Year's honours list. Professor Patel, an academic pharmacist from West Yorkshire, was awarded an OBE for his "services to pharmacy." He told Pharmacy Business: "I am truly honoured and deeply humbled by this highly prestigious award that I have always believed was more deserving for others. "That's not to say I'm not proud of it - far from it, although for me it's not necessarily about rewards and recognition but more the intricacies of the journey I embark on and the learning and joy that those encounters bring with it. Most recently, Professor Patel - who has had a broad ranging portfolio career spanning community pharmacy, health education and health promotion, academia, and research - has been involved in promoting clinical trials across community pharmacies in the UK. His latest work has seen him act as one of the national leads for the PRINCIPLE and PANORAMIC trials, run by Oxford University - both trials seek to pioneer repurposed and new drug treatments in the community to prevent hospitalisation due to Covid-19.