Safety perspectives on presently considered drugs for the treatment of COVID‐19

Penman, Sophie L.; Kiy, Robyn T.; Jensen, Rebecca L.; Beoku‐Betts, Christopher; Alfirevic, Ana; Back, David; Khoo, Saye H.; Owen, Andrew; Pirmohamed, Munir; Park, B. Kevin; Meng, Xiaoli; Goldring, Christopher E.; Chadwick, Amy E.

Intense effort is underway to evaluate potential therapeutic agents for the treatment of COVID‐19. In order to respond quickly to the crisis, the repurposing of existing drugs is the primary pharmacological strategy. Despite the urgent clinical need for these therapies, it is imperative to consider potential safety issues. This is important due to the harm‐benefit ratios that may be encountered when treating COVID‐19, which can depend on the stage of the disease, when therapy is administered and underlying clinical factors in individual patients. Treatments are currently being trialled for a range of scenarios from prophylaxis (where benefit must greatly exceed risk) to severe life‐threatening disease (where a degree of potential risk may be tolerated if it is exceeded by the potential benefit). In this perspective, we have reviewed some of the most widely‐researched repurposed agents in order to identify potential safety considerations using existing information in the context of COVID‐19.