6. Clinical trials Flashcards
what are clinical trials?
a type of research that studies new tests and treatments and evaluates their effects on human health outcomes
what things can we do a clinical trial for?
- drugs
- vaccines
- life style changes
- cell based treatments
- surgeries
- radiology things
- clinical devices
who did the first organised clinical trials?
Josef Mengele and the Nazi twin experiments
what was the result of Josef Mengele’s experiments?
the declaration of helsinki and the Nuremberg code was made as a result of the Nuremberg trials
what is the Nuremberg code?
a set of rules on what could and couldn’t be done on humans
what is the declaration of Helsinki?
- it overs rides any national laws
- guides all clinical trials
- has 2 fundamental points: respect for the individual and the right to make an informed choice
- everyone running clinical trials undergoes training every 3 years
what are the 5 steps of drug development?
- Discovery and development
- preclinical research
- clinical research
- licencing review
- post-market drug safety monitoring
Process of drug development: discovery and development
Normally a university will get a new insight into disease/disease process
then they used a library of compounds to find potential future drugs and test them in the lab
OR
Use something normally and find out it has side effects that can be useful and it’ll become a new treatment
(like viagra is a an angina drug)
Process of drug development: preclinical research
before you get near a human you need to know if the drug is safe - testing toxicity
1. in lab = in vitro
2. primates/mammal research = in vivo
- controversial but important
- a minimum amount of work is needed to show the drug is safe
- the lab and experiments have to comply to regulations
Process of drug development: Clinical Research
to give the drug to humans
requires loads of paperwork like lorry loads
what is the investigational new drug (IND) process?
- happens before clincal research
- have to tell them it is coming and acts as a prevetting stage
- aims to protect the people you will be testing on
- either approval for trial or held for improvement
what is included in the IND process?
- animal study data and toxicity
- Manufacturing information
- clinical trial protocol
- data from any human research
- info about the investigators and trials team
why might a drug be prevented from entering clinical trials?
- its not safe
- misleading information in IND
- not happy with the trial leaders like not having enough experience
- too expensive
what do you need to consider when designing a clinical trial?
- who?
- how many people?
- how long for the trial?
- control group? address bias?
- how will the drug be given? at what dose?
- end points?
- agreed safety and efficacy endpoints
what is the protocol for ethical approval?
- all trials are published online
- a pre defined protocol that is submitted for ethical approval