Characterizing SARS-CoV-2 Viral Clearance Kinetics to Improve the Design of Antiviral Pharmacometric Studies
Watson JA., Kissler SM., Day NPJ., Grad YH., White NJ.
A consensus methodology for the pharmacometric assessment of candidate SARS-CoV-2 antiviral drugs would be useful for comparing trial results and improving trial design. The time to viral clearance, assessed by serial qPCR of nasopharyngeal swab samples, has been the most widely reported measure of virological response in clinical trials, but it has not been compared formally with other metrics, notably model-based estimates of the rate of viral clearance.