A Lowdown on Pharmaceutical Trade

The pharmaceutical business might seem like a very lucrative industry; but, in reality a lot of hard-work is pitched in by researchers to develop drugs. It takes more than a decade for researchers to develop a drug and release it in the market; however, before all this happens, a lot of efforts Chemistry Professor at the Northwestern University, Richard Silverman, said informed that for every 20,000 compounds evaluated in the industry, only ten are able to reach the stage for clinical trials. Following the trials and all the paperwork, only one drug is released in the market. Prof. Silverman was speaking at the Northwestern University campus located in downtown Chicago, on Thursday night. He informed that people thought, an array of drugs were being launched in the market; however, the current situation is in complete contradiction to popular belief. He informed that there are four separate stages before a drug is released in the market. The first basically involves an examination of dose levels and checking the safety of the medicine in people volunteering for the medicine. The second phase involved an evaluation of the effectiveness of the drug on the illness; while the third phase is considered to be the longest, it covers an astounding six years and thousands of patients are provided a drug during this time. It is currently under evaluation by the US food and Drug Administration. The FDA continues to check the drug in its fourth phase, after a proper evaluation the drug is released in the market. He concluded by saying that a drug on an average took 12 to 15 years to be released in the market if all goes according to plans.