Real-world evidence with a retrospective cohort of 15,968 Andalusian COVID-19 hospitalized patients suggests 21 new effective treatments and one drug that increases death risk

Despite the extensive vaccination campaigns in many countries, COVID-19 is still a major worldwide health problem because of its associated morbidity and mortality. Therefore, finding efficient treatments as fast as possible is a pressing need. Drug repurposing constitutes a convenient alternative when the need for new drugs in an unexpected medical scenario is urgent, as is the case with COVID-19. Using data from a central registry of electronic health records (the Andalusian Population Health Database, BPS), the effect of prior consumption of drugs for other indications previous to the hospitalization with respect to patient survival was studied on a retrospective cohort of 15,968 individuals, comprising all COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Andalusia between January and November 2020. Covariate-adjusted hazard ratios and analysis of lymphocyte progression curves support a significant association between consumption of 21 different drugs and better patient survival. Contrarily, one drug, furosemide, displayed a significant increase in patient mortality.This research was funded by Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant PID2020- 117979RB-I00), the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), co-funded with European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) (grant IMP/00019), and has also been funded by Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de Andalucía (grants COVID-0012-2020, PS-2020-342 and IE19_259 FPS) and the postdoctoral contract of Carlos Loucera (PAIDI2020- DOC_00350) co-funded by the European Social Fund (FSE) 2014-2020.N