Drug development is the process of finding and producingtherapeutically useful pharmaceuticals, turning them into safe andeffective medicine, and producing reliable information regardingthe appropriate dosage and dosing intervals. With regulatoryauthorities demanding increasingly higher standards in suchdevelopments, statistics has become an intrinsic and criticalelement in the design and conduct of drug development programmes. Statistical Issues in Drug Development presents anessential and thought provoking guide to the statistical issues andcontroversies involved in drug development. This highly readable second edition has been updated toinclude: Comprehensive coverage of the design and interpretation ofclinical trials. Expanded sections on missing data, equivalence, meta-analysisand dose finding. An examination of both Bayesian and frequentist methods. A new chapter on pharmacogenomics and expanded coverage ofpharmaco-epidemiology and pharmaco-economics. Coverage of the ICH guidelines, in particular ICH E9,Statistical Principles for Clinical Trials. It is hoped that the book will stimulate dialogue betweenstatisticians and life scientists working within the pharmaceuticalindustry. The accessible and wide-ranging coverage make itessential reading for both statisticians and non-statisticiansworking in the pharmaceutical industry, regulatory bodies andmedical research institutes. There is also much to benefitundergraduate and postgraduate students whose courses include amedical statistics component.

Delineates the statistical building blocks and concepts of clinical trials.

Improving and Accelerating Therapeutic Development for Nervous System Disorders is the summary of a workshop convened by the IOM Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders to examine opportunities to accelerate early phases of drug development for nervous system drug discovery. Workshop participants discussed challenges in neuroscience research for enabling faster entry of potential treatments into first-in-human trials, explored how new and emerging tools and technologies may improve the efficiency of research, and considered mechanisms to facilitate a more effective and efficient development pipeline. There are several challenges to the current drug development pipeline for nervous system disorders. The fundamental etiology and pathophysiology of many nervous system disorders are unknown and the brain is inaccessible to study, making it difficult to develop accurate models. Patient heterogeneity is high, disease pathology can occur years to decades before becoming clinically apparent, and diagnostic and treatment biomarkers are lacking. In addition, the lack of validated targets, limitations related to the predictive validity of animal models - the extent to which the model predicts clinical efficacy - and regulatory barriers can also impede translation and drug development for nervous system disorders. Improving and Accelerating Therapeutic Development for Nervous System Disorders identifies avenues for moving directly from cellular models to human trials, minimizing the need for animal models to test efficacy, and discusses the potential benefits and risks of such an approach. This report is a timely discussion of opportunities to improve early drug development with a focus toward preclinical trials.

Randomized clinical trials are the primary tool for evaluating new medical interventions. Randomization provides for a fair comparison between treatment and control groups, balancing out, on average, distributions of known and unknown factors among the participants. Unfortunately, these studies often lack a substantial percentage of data. This missing data reduces the benefit provided by the randomization and introduces potential biases in the comparison of the treatment groups. Missing data can arise for a variety of reasons, including the inability or unwillingness of participants to meet appointments for evaluation. And in some studies, some or all of data collection ceases when participants discontinue study treatment. Existing guidelines for the design and conduct of clinical trials, and the analysis of the resulting data, provide only limited advice on how to handle missing data. Thus, approaches to the analysis of data with an appreciable amount of missing values tend to be ad hoc and variable. The Prevention and Treatment of Missing Data in Clinical Trials concludes that a more principled approach to design and analysis in the presence of missing data is both needed and possible. Such an approach needs to focus on two critical elements: (1) careful design and conduct to limit the amount and impact of missing data and (2) analysis that makes full use of information on all randomized participants and is based on careful attention to the assumptions about the nature of the missing data underlying estimates of treatment effects. In addition to the highest priority recommendations, the book offers more detailed recommendations on the conduct of clinical trials and techniques for analysis of trial data.

Following the success of the first edition, published in 1995, this fully rewritten A Guide to Clinical Drug Research - Second Edition has been adapted to the most recent guidelines and developments in the field. It continues to provide a wealth of practical advice, ranging from the conception of an idea, planning a study and writing a protocol, through to the conduct of a study, data collection and analysis, and publication. It tells investigators what information they should expect sponsoring companies to provide, particularly when there is only limited information available about a new drug. It also explains what the company can expect of investigators, including the requirements of `good clinical practice'. Unlike other currently available texts on clinical trials and pharmaceutical medicine, A Guide to Clinical Drug Research concentrates on the needs of the practising clinician and research team. It is not restricted to drug investigation, and is relevant to all those involved in clinical research in a variety of settings. Audience: Required reading for clinical researchers and others involved as investigators in a drug project, often sponsored by a pharmacuetical company, plus agents of the sponsoring companies themselves.

Data sharing can accelerate new discoveries by avoiding duplicative trials, stimulating new ideas for research, and enabling the maximal scientific knowledge and benefits to be gained from the efforts of clinical trial participants and investigators. At the same time, sharing clinical trial data presents risks, burdens, and challenges. These include the need to protect the privacy and honor the consent of clinical trial participants; safeguard the legitimate economic interests of sponsors; and guard against invalid secondary analyses, which could undermine trust in clinical trials or otherwise harm public health. Sharing Clinical Trial Data presents activities and strategies for the responsible sharing of clinical trial data. With the goal of increasing scientific knowledge to lead to better therapies for patients, this book identifies guiding principles and makes recommendations to maximize the benefits and minimize risks. This report offers guidance on the types of clinical trial data available at different points in the process, the points in the process at which each type of data should be shared, methods for sharing data, what groups should have access to data, and future knowledge and infrastructure needs. Responsible sharing of clinical trial data will allow other investigators to replicate published findings and carry out additional analyses, strengthen the evidence base for regulatory and clinical decisions, and increase the scientific knowledge gained from investments by the funders of clinical trials. The recommendations of Sharing Clinical Trial Data will be useful both now and well into the future as improved sharing of data leads to a stronger evidence base for treatment. This book will be of interest to stakeholders across the spectrum of research-from funders, to researchers, to journals, to physicians, and ultimately, to patients.

Drug Utilization Research (DUR) is an eclectic scientific discipline, integrating descriptive and analytical methods for the quantification, understanding and evaluation of the processes of prescribing, dispensing and consumption of medicines and for the testing of interventions to enhance the quality of these processes. The discipline is closely related and linked mainly to the broader field of pharmacoepidemiology, but also to health outcomes research, pharmacovigilance and health economics. Drug Utilization Research is a unique, practical guide to the assessment and evaluation of prescribing practices and to interventions to improve the use of medicines in populations. Edited by an international expert team from the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE), DUR is the only title to cover both the methodology and applications of drug utilization research and covers areas such as health policy, specific populations, therapeutics and adherence.

If you have ever wondered when visiting the pharmacy how the dosage of your prescription is determined this book will answer your questions. Dosing information on drug labels is based on discussion between the pharmaceutical manufacturer and the drug regulatory agency, and the label is a summary of results obtained from many scientific experiments. The book introduces the drug development process, the design and the analysis of clinical trials. Many of the discussions are based on applications of statistical methods in the design and analysis of dose response studies. Important procedural steps from a pharmaceutical industry perspective are also examined.

Drug development is an iterative process. The recent publications of regulatory guidelines further entail a lifecycle approach. Blending data from disparate sources, the Bayesian approach provides a flexible framework for drug development. Despite its advantages, the uptake of Bayesian methodologies is lagging behind in the field of pharmaceutical development. Written specifically for pharmaceutical practitioners, Bayesian Analysis with R for Drug Development: Concepts, Algorithms, and Case Studies, describes a wide range of Bayesian applications to problems throughout pre-clinical, clinical, and Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Control (CMC) development. Authored by two seasoned statisticians in the pharmaceutical industry, the book provides detailed Bayesian solutions to a broad array of pharmaceutical problems. Features Provides a single source of information on Bayesian statistics for drug development Covers a wide spectrum of pre-clinical, clinical, and CMC topics Demonstrates proper Bayesian applications using real-life examples Includes easy-to-follow R code with Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo performed in both JAGS and Stan Bayesian software platforms Offers sufficient background for each problem and detailed description of solutions suitable for practitioners with limited Bayesian knowledge Harry Yang, Ph.D., is Senior Director and Head of Statistical Sciences at AstraZeneca. He has 24 years of experience across all aspects of drug research and development and extensive global regulatory experiences. He has published 6 statistical books, 15 book chapters, and over 90 peer-reviewed papers on diverse scientific and statistical subjects, including 15 joint statistical works with Dr. Novick. He is a frequent invited speaker at national and international conferences. He also developed statistical courses and conducted training at the FDA and USP as well as Peking University. Steven Novick, Ph.D., is Director of Statistical Sciences at AstraZeneca. He has extensively contributed statistical methods to the biopharmaceutical literature. Novick is a skilled Bayesian computer programmer and is frequently invited to speak at conferences, having developed and taught courses in several areas, including drug-combination analysis and Bayesian methods in clinical areas. Novick served on IPAC-RS and has chaired several national statistical conferences.

Written by a well-known lecturer and consultant to the pharmaceutical industry, this book focuses on the pharmaceutical non-statistician working within a very strict regulatory environment. Statistical Thinking for Clinical Trials in Drug Regulation presents the concepts and statistical thinking behind medical studies with a direct connection to the regulatory environment so that readers can be clear where the statistical methodology fits in with industry requirements. Pharmaceutical-related examples are used throughout to set the information in context. As a result, this book provides a detailed overview of the statistical aspects of the design, conduct, analysis and presentation of data from clinical trials within drug regulation. Statistical Thinking for Clinical Trials in Drug Regulation: Assists pharmaceutical personnel in communicating effectively with statisticians using statistical language Improves the ability to read and understand statistical methodology in papers and reports and to critically appraise that methodology Helps to understand the statistical aspects of the regulatory framework better quoting extensively from regulatory guidelines issued by the EMEA (European Medicines Evaluation Agency), ICH (International Committee on Harmonization and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration)