The number of vaccine and therapeutic clinical trials targeting COVID-19 have been trending in opposite directions for months, a new analysis shows, with the number of vaccine trials increasing steadily and therapeutic trials on the decline.

COVID-19 vaccine trials have continued an upward trend since the start of the pandemic and reached a peak of 89 trials in March 2021, according to analysis firm GlobalData. The firm added that the second-highest peak in the trend was reached in December 2020, while the third quarter of 2020 saw the highest number of trials, on balance, for any quarter between the first quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021.

Conversely, the number of COVID-19 therapeutic trials has continued a downward trend since peaking at 445 trials in April 2020. There were 80 trials in February 2021, the lowest number since the beginning of the pandemic, while the number of such trials in the first quarter of 2021 decreased compared to the same quarter last year.

Read the GlobalData analysis here: https://bit.ly/3cvbqrP.