I was following some research into repurposing existing drugs for COVID that started early last year. Only last month did they complete gathering enough people for the experiment.
I worked with a group trying to get a drug repurposing study running in June of last year. U01 submissions were often Sept-Aug with no cash until April 2021. To a degree, these NOTs and RFAs are deeply unserious and woefully underfunded. There are 10s of absurdly narrow sub-focuses (e.g. "Medical Consequences of Smoking and Vaping Drugs of Abuse in Individuals with HIV and COVID-19" really??) that are great add-ons to some existing research problem, but totally miss the point. It's not wrong to study these the ideas, but why prioritize over larger more impactful studies of drugs to treat ARDS or ALI?
Much like The Fed provided public and private debt support, these applications are more pork for existing investigators with deep knowledge of the NIH bureaucracy, but sadly likely of little relevance to the larger issue.
I was following some research into repurposing existing drugs for COVID that started early last year. Only last month did they complete gathering enough people for the experiment.