Testing Medicines

• New medicines

  Developed all the time, have to be extensively tested
• Sources of new medicines

  • Extracted from plants
  • Extracted from microorganisms
  • Synthesized by chemists
• Drug testing process

  1. Preclinical testing on cells, tissues, or live animals

  2. Clinical testing on healthy volunteers to check safety

  3. Clinical testing to find optimal dose
• Placebo

  Tablet or injection with no active drug
• Double-blind trial

  Test group receives active drug, control group receives dummy drug, neither patients nor doctors know who is receiving what
• Double-blind trials are to stop bias in case doctors pay closer attention to people receiving the active drug