?Study discontinued due to feasibility of recruitment; no safety issues have been reported or efficacy conclusions made
?Novartis remains committed to ongoing research and development for COVID-19
?Supply of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) from Novartis will continue for clinical trials and upon government requests worldwide

Basel, June 19, 2020 — Novartis has made the decision to stop and discontinue its sponsored HCQ clinical trial for COVID-19 due to acute enrollment challenges that have made trial completion infeasible. The recruitment challenge facing our HCQ trial has made it unlikely that the clinical team will be able to collect meaningful data in a reasonable timeframe to determine the effectiveness of HCQ in treating patients with COVID-19. No safety issues have been reported, and there are no conclusions on efficacy from the study.

Novartis will continue to provide supply of HCQ for ongoing investigator-initiated trials (IITs) and upon government requests, as appropriate, where certain conditions are met and the medicine is used in accordance with a nationally endorsed treatment protocol. Researchers at Novartis continue to monitor ongoing guidance from health authorities on the further study of HCQ for COVID-19, as well as the decision by the US Food and Drug Administration to stop the emergency use authorization of HCQ for COVID-19 treatment. In addition, ongoing studies involving other Novartis treatments continue, as well as the newly announced support of a potential vaccine. Novartis also continues to collaborate to find answers for COVID-19 through various partnerships with multi-stakeholder external consortia.

Novartis wishes to thank all of the patients, their families, investigators and healthcare professionals who played a vital part in our HCQ clinical trial (CJWT629A12301, NCT04358081) for COVID-19.

More information about the Novartis response to COVID-19 is available on novartis.com/coronavirus.

Disclaimer
This media update contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by words such as “potential,” “can,” “will,” etc. etc..

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