Clinical Trials Information

Because - as a top researcher once remarked - 'there's just so much you can learn from a mouse,' the human volunteers who participate in clinical drug trials are medicine's true unsung heroes. They are risk-takers for the best of reasons: improving the quality of life of others.

No drug could possibly be approved for sale without the help of ordinary people willing to be among the first to try an experimental compound. In the final analysis - despite sophisticated computer models, repeated laboratory experiments and extensive animal testing - the only way to be really sure a new drug works safely in humans is to have humans try it. Clinical trials are the carefully designed experiments that allow these tests to happen.

Clinical trials are one stage in the whole process of developing a new drug treatment. The entire process - identifying a possible drug treatment, testing it on animals, getting approval for a clinical trial with people, running the trial, analyzing the results, applying for a license and getting approval to use the drug in regular treatment - takes a long time, sometimes many years.

Planning and running a clinical trial involves teamwork. To find effective treatments, people living with arthritis, scientists, doctors, other health care providers, industry and governments must work together. People living with arthritis help ensure researchers are aware of their needs and concerns, and they participate in the trials. Researchers ensure that the trials are of the highest scientific quality, and they analyze the results. Physicians and other health care providers monitor the progress of people involved in the trial, and pass that information to the researchers. Industry provides the drugs and usually fund the trials. Government and other funding bodies may also help pay for the trials. And government regulatory agencies are responsible for reviewing the results of the trials and deciding, based on the scientific evidence, whether to approve the drug for wider use.

If you have ever thought about volunteering for clinical drug trials, this section contains some background information that will give you some perspective on this exciting aspect of research. The majority of this information is provided here courtesy of the Canadian AIDS Society and its excellent booklet Clinical Trials: What You Need To Know. The booklet, and any additional information included here, does not endorse any particular trial or try to persuade people to participate in a clinical trial. It simply explains the purpose of clinical trials, how they are conducted, how people can join a trial and what they can expect from a trial if they decide to participate.

This page was last reviewed/updated on : 02/23/2008