Prescribing Experimental Drugs

Prescribing Experimental Drugs
A great deal of time, money and research go into the development of a new drug and many of these drugs won’t even make it to the destined patient until it’s too late. Imagine having to tell someone with a life-threatening disease that there is a possible cure but it happens to be in the experimental phases of development, and they don’t qualify for the clinical trial. “It is estimated that, in 2006, nearly 1.4 million ’terminally ill’ patients in the United States lost their battle, many having been denied access to potentially lifesaving treatments” (Portell, 2008) Drug sponsors and manufacturers monitor the results of all stages of the development process to ensure that the drug is safe for general use. However, giving experimental drugs to patients before they are approved leaves room for erroneous trial outcomes and results in higher time and money costs for the manufacturers.
Drug sponsors have many steps to complete; applications to fill out, reviews to attend and clinical trials to perform, all while maintaining the ethical and legal standards set forth by the United States. “According to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the average drug on the market is the end result of 15 years of research and development from the earliest stages of drug discovery to FDA approval.” (DeArment, 2009)
In order to get a clear picture of how to obtain drugs while still in the experimental phase an in-depth look at the developme...

Prescribing Experimental Drugs

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