Big Pharma and Research

I'm hardly a big fan of big pharma (understatement). But I think we sometimes don't think of how difficult it is to develop an effective drug that is also safe. Derek Lowe is a chemist who used to work in drug development, and I follow him to see how such people think. I found this recent blog interesting.

Management puts pressure on their chemists to develop profitable drugs in a minimum amount of time. But that means they sometimes don't have time for rigorous testing. He cites a trial in France in which 2 of 9 patients in a phase 1 trial (which is supposed to test safety) died.

PK = pharmacokinetic, and PD = pharmacodynamic.