• Question: i am very interested in your work developing cancer drugs. What was the process of doing this?

    Asked by biochemistry_gg to Harriet on 11 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Harriet Reid

      Harriet Reid answered on 11 Mar 2016:

      Hi,

      So the fist thing is to come up with some ideas that you think might work. The general idea is that the drug kills cancer cells without killing healthy cells.
      Then we test the drug on cells that in a dish, if we can kill cancer cells and not normal cells then the drug is tested in animals. If that goes well then tests in humans start.
      The first stage (phase1) the drug is tested a few people who have very bad cancer who have tried all known treatments but are still getting worse. This is mostly to test that the drug doesn’t make people more ill.
      Next we do phase 2 trials, this typically has about 100 people who have cancer in. Half get the new treatment and half get the previous best treatment. If this shows that the new drug is better than the old treatment then we do phase 3 trials.
      In phase 3 has 300 or more people in, this is to show that the treatment works in lots of different people.
      Then all the results are given to the government to decide if the new drug is safe and effective. All this takes about 10-20years and about $1 billion dollars.

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