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Did you know it can take anywhere from 10 to 15 years to develop a new medicine? It’s a long journey, and clinical trials are a key part of that drug development process!
These medical trials are research studies where scientists, doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals test new ways to treat illnesses. Clinical trials help us learn if a new experimental treatment is safe and if it works.
Clinical trials need people like you. Whether you’re living with a health condition or are completely healthy, your participation matters.
Researchers welcome people of all ages, from young children to older adults. They need both healthy volunteers and patient volunteers with different backgrounds and lifestyles. And they need people with a variety of health conditions, not just those who are healthy. Why such a wide range of people? Because this helps researchers learn how new treatments might work for different groups of people. It’s how they make sure new medicines are safe and effective for everyone.
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Clinical trials have different stages, also known as clinical trial phases. Each stage in these clinical trial stages has a different number of people participating:
Safety First – A small group of 20-80 volunteers helps researchers understand how the body responds to a new treatment and what side effects might occur. These pioneering participants play a crucial role in determining if a treatment is safe to study further.
After establishing safety, researchers work with 100-300 people who have the condition being studied. This phase explores whether the treatment shows promise in addressing the illness and continues to monitor safety.
Now researchers give the medicine to an even bigger group, often hundreds or even thousands of people. Doctors compare the new medicine to older medicines or a placebo to see which one works best. This phase often involves randomisation to ensure unbiased results.
Even after a medicine is available for everyone to use, doctors continue to study it in large groups of people to make sure it’s safe and working well.
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Participating in a clinical trial can offer potential benefits to individuals, such as access to new treatments and close medical monitoring. However, it’s important to recognise that every research study has potential risks and that individual experiences may vary.
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Everyone deserves a voice in shaping the future of healthcare. pRxEngage is expanding access and improving clinical trials through patient empowerment.