Developing Drugs

Preclinical stages = done in a laboratory using cells, tissues and live animals.
Clinical Stages = healthy volunteers and patients.
- Very low doses of the drug are given to healthy volunteers (testing for toxicity)
- Then the drug is given to patients suffering from the illness (finding optimum dose)
- Double blind trials where some patients are given a placebo (testing efficacy)
Results go through peer review to prevent false claims