Statistical Issues in Drug Development

Book excerpt: 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.