They are not scrambling: The clinical trial was

They are not scrambling:

The clinical trial was originally approved as a 28-day study at FDA’s direction. In December, NeuroRx added a 60-day endpoint based on the recognition that the traditional 28-day endpoint adopted in the 1990s for trials in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome is not appropriate for critically ill patients with Covid-19, who are frequently maintained in the ICU with advanced technologies well beyond this time point. NeuroRx and other clinical trial sponsors alerted FDA to this trend and yesterday the FDA published formal guidance† changing the required time for measuring the prespecified endpoint of “alive and free of respiratory failure” in critically ill patients to 60 days. Interim data are being reported because they were unblinded as per the original protocol and the last patient in the trial reached day 60 yesterday. Therefore, study conduct cannot be adversely influenced by release of these interim findings.