| During the development process of new therapeutic approaches, multi-phase
clinical research studies (clinical trials) are the last hurdle to overcome. Hence
clinical trials represent one of the crucial steps in the development of a new drug.
In view of increasing competition, rising cost pressures and, above all, the need to
bring new products to market as quickly as possible, the current process of clinical
trial supply management harbours inefficiencies, which can be eliminated by
innovative RFID-based technologies.
‘TIME TO MARKET’ IS CRUCIAL
The total costs of developing a new drug
or treatment up to the point of approval
can amount to as much as US$ 1 billion.
Typically, a new drug will have been
subjected to around 10 years of stringent
preclinical testing before entering the
first of a total of three clinical trial
phases. Nonetheless, according to
information published by the FDA in
2004, a new drug has merely an eight
per cent chance of achieving final
approval and thus being brought to
market. One of the reasons for this is
the fact that results obtained in animal
tests can be applied to humans only to
a limited extent: around 90 per cent of
substances found to be safe with lab
animals fail the test of subsequent
clinical trials on humans. |
