Simulated clinical trials promise healthcare miracles
June 03 2008 / by futuretalk / In association with Future Blogger.net
Category: Health & Medicine Year: General Rating: 10 Hot
By Dick Pelletier
Movies like The Terminator series and 2001: a Space Odyssey
bring out the little child in us. We love to fantasize about
computers capable of mimicking life. Today, this science fiction is
rapidly becoming real science with computers bringing human cells
to “virtual” life. 
Recognizing the values of this new technology, the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration recently recommended that the industry
expand and accelerate development of simulated clinical trials. For
too long, experts say, the drug industry has relied on human trial
and error; sometimes even intuition, to determine which products
would succeed. Statistics show three of every four drugs entering
clinical trials fail, leaving companies burdened with huge
financial losses and shattering the hopes of patients anxiously
awaiting cures.
From R&D to the pharmacy, each drug development typically takes ten years or more and costs up to $1 billion, which is the prime reason prescription drugs are so astronomically high priced. Researchers struggling to meet time-to-market deadlines, and drug companies anxious to cut costs, are beginning to place their hopes on computer simulations.
Recently, pharmaceutical giant Aventis was racing to develop a competitor to Evista, a hot-selling drug from Eli Lilly. Aventis was already in early human trials, but computer simulations revealed a potential side effect which could lead to cancer. They immediately stopped funding the development and switched to a safer backup drug. Researcher Frank Douglas said the company saved $50 to $100 million and avoided exposing women to a drug that ultimately could have given them cancer. (cont.)
