Merits	Risks and research gaps	Proposed solutions
Speed of response	Rapid response to emerging pandemic	Haste in funding, development and implementation may have jeopardised scientific and ethical rigour	Develop protocols for fast track procedures in emergency scenarios balancing rigour and urgency
Number of trials and sample size	Impressive research scale‐up, many trials being launched	Most trials relatively small, limited statistical power to detect effects on clinically important outcomes (eg, mortality)	Consider evidence synthesis opportunities throughout trial conduct, facilitate collaboration and coordination to enable pooling of data and results
Core outcomes and evidence synthesis	Core outcomes have been developed early in the pandemic to enable successful evidence synthesis	Data sharing/collaboration intentions are low	Encourage and create infrastructure for collaboration (eg, in prospective meta‐analyses) through funding bodies and trial registries
		Low proportion of trials collecting core outcomes (eg, only 53% assess mortality)	Establish a recognition system for collaboration and data sharing following FAIR principles
Innovation	Range of innovative interventions (eg, vaccine solutions and digital health solutions) balanced with repurposing of existing treatments	Lack of innovation in trial design (eg, only two trials using adaptive designs)	Increase use of adaptive designs to respond to the rapidly changing evidence landscape
	Innovation in trial conduct (digital recruitment and delivery modes)
Types of interventions and populations studied	Broad array of drug categories investigated	Extensive media coverage and public opinion may have misled research prioritisation (eg, too many hydroxychloroquine trials)	Improve research coordination and prioritisation through infrastructure (eg, funders, trial registries) to ensure a variety of priorities are met and to avoid duplication of effort
		Few non‐pharmaceutical trials and no trials on public health communication or community transmission prevention
		Few trials included populations at high risk of poor outcomes from COVID‐19 such as those with comorbidities

FAIR = findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable.