Preclinical Drug Development And What It Means To You The Consumer
For most people, what actually transpires in technical terms during the drug development process is a complete mystery. All that most people care about prescription drugs is that they work, don't make them feel sick and that they are affordable.
The “preclinical” stage of developing a new drug to cure a disease, is what goes on in the early part of finding a new cure for a disease. It is when new substances and diseases are introduced to each other on an experimental basis to see how effective the new substances are.
A Disease is First Studied
Drug development is broken up into several stages or “jobs”. For instance, the first thing that must be done, is a disease or condition must be thoroughly studied. Just like a general studying an enemy for a weak place in their armor, scientists and medical researchers must learn all that they can about a disease before thay can begin to develop a cure for it.
This part in the search for a new drug would be considered one part of the preclinical drug development process. After a disease is thoroughly understood then substances are used to see if they have any effect on it and also to see the effect that they have on the people that use them. This the next stage of the preclinical drug development process.
After a Drug is Developed, it then Must Be Tested
After all of the preclinical drug development work is done, what what a company and its researches hope for, is a drug that they can hold in their hand that actually works and appears to be safe. Preclinical drug development work can in fact go on endlessly, when diseases that researchers are facing are difficult to cure such as cancer.
However; even after all the preclinical development work is done and the results are positive, the drug that was developed then faces an average of ten years of testing to be sure that that it is safe enough to approved by the FDA for sale in the U.S.
