What are clinical trials?

A clinical trial is the investigation of a new treatment for a disease. The work might be sponsored by a pharmaceutical or biotechnology company, government, university, or a private foundation. The purpose of these studies is to find out whether a new treatment or medical technology (such as imaging or medical devices) is safe to use and effective for various diseases or medical conditions. In order to study the treatment, several questions need to be answered first. For example, what patient population or disease is a drug likely to be effective in? What criteria should be used for accepting participants into the study? What general and disease-specific information are the study doctors going to obtain?

Essentially, once these and other important study questions are answered, the study doctors (investigators) are chosen, the regulatory documents are approved and the study is ready to begin.