Developing Drugs

• New medical treatment needs to be treated and trialled for:

  • Safety/Toxicity
  • Dosage
  • Effectiveness/Efficacy
  • Stable
• Process of testing new drugs:

  1. (Preclinical Testing) Used a computer model then cells and tissue to allow efficacy and show possible side effects
  2. Test on live animals to see how it affects a whole organism
  3. (Clinical Testing) Phase 1: Healthy volunteers is given low doses. If safe give optimum doses. Phase 2: (Double-Blind Trial) Patients split into 2 groups, one group gets a placebo and other the actual drug
• Placebo= a fake drug that is given to a patient to test the effectiveness of a drug