About Clinical Trials and Clinical
Research
Learn more about patient safety, benefits, length of trials and volunteering
Before a medication is made available to the general public, it must undergo stringent clinical testing. Pharmaceutical companies do years of laboratory research and then must apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in order to conduct clinical trials and research studies on humans.
Clinical trials and research studies are essential to the development of new
medications and treatments. Clinical trials generally fall into one of the following
categories:
- Treatments – Testing new treatments or comparing treatments.
- Prevention – Research and testing on how to prevent healthy people
from getting a condition or to stop it from recurring.
- Screening – Clinical trials can detect a certain disease or condition.
- Quality of Life – Clinical trials and research studies goal is to
improve the comfort and everyday life for those suffering
with chronic illnesses.
- Genetics – The role of genes in an illness.
Through clinical trials and research studies, pharmaceutical
companies can determine:
- How a new medication should be administered (i.e. by mouth
or injection)
- Effective dosage amounts and intervals
- Side effects
- Drug metabolism
- Drug effectiveness
- Impact on volunteer’s quality of life
- Cost effectiveness
By participating in clinical
trials and research studies, you will be helping develop promising new treatments,
while at the same time, possibly reducing your own discomfort
and symptoms. While clinical trials and research studies
are safe and supervised, we encourage you to learn as
much as you can about what they entail. To read details
on our clinical trials, please click on the links below.
Patient safety
Length of clinical trials
Patient benefits
Volunteering for clinical trials
