COVID-19 impact update
22 March 2022
The spread of COVID-19 has severely impacted economies around the globe, with businesses closing or limiting operations for prolonged or indefinite periods. Measures taken to contain the spread of the virus, including travel bans, quarantines, lock downs, and closures of non-essential services, have triggered significant disruptions to businesses worldwide. Global stock markets have also experienced considerable volatility during this time.
For QBiotics, this has impacted us as follows:
1. STELFONTA® Europe, UK and USA sales
Sales of STELFONTA® in the EU and the UK, continue to be significantly impacted by COVID-19, as has sales in the USA but to a lesser extent. The launch of such an innovation requires a paradigm shift and a comprehensive communication programme that has been substantially diluted during the pandemic.
Encouragingly, early adopters have embraced STELFONTA® in all key markets, and word of mouth is now gaining momentum. We anticipate sales of STELFONTA® will continue to grow as the integrated campaigns gain further traction.
2. Tigilanol Tiglate Human Clinical Trials
COVID-19 continues to have a negative impact on the establishment of human clinical trials and patient recruitment rates globally. The impact of COVID-19 on all QBiotics’ human clinical trials has recently been assessed. Overall, we have estimated that we have lost approximately 12 months on all human clinical trial timelines.
However, the QBiotics team has been innovative in counteracting the above constraints by investing additional time to build and maintain relationships with clinicians and staff, offering assistance where possible and, most importantly, increasing the number of sites undertaking our clinical trials to increase patient recruitment and help reduce trial timelines.