Drug trials, or clinical trials as they are better know as, is a tool used by pharmaceutical companies to research new medicines under clinical conditions so the data can be analysed and the product verified as safe before it is made available through normal channels.
Volunteers for clinical trials are found from all walks of life and their participation can be voluntary or paid.
Of course the question of whether the trial is safe or not has long been an issue.
No product is usually ever used in it has undergone extensive, meticulous testing and research in a laboratory before it is considered to be safe to be tried on human volunteers.
The success of bringing a new drug to the market will depend almost wholly on the data of the safety and efficacy of such drugs through the use of clinical trials.
Usually a trial would involve healthy volunteers but can also sometimes include a small pilot study with patients who would directly benefit from the product being tested.
Clinical trials are flexible both in their number and the trial area that can cover not only one but multiple countries simultaneously.
The financial cost of a clinical trial can be excessive and the cost is mostly borne by the sponsor who could be a government body, a pharmaceutical or a biotechnology company.
As many trails can be so large and diverse, companies will often hand over the management of that trial to an outsourced partner such as a contract research organisation.
A contract research organisation (CRO) can also be called a clinical research organisation and works primarily in the pharmaceutical industry.
Mainly it is involved in the processes of developing a new drug but some simply administer tests on already developed drugs.