The ultimate aim of pharmacological studies in animals is to find out a herapeutic agent suitable for clinical evaluation in man. No doubt, animal studies provide analogies and serve as useful models. The administration of biologically active agent to human beings is associated with an element of risk, which cannot be predicted by even the most careful and exhaustive animal experiments.
Scientists all over the world are in a continuous effort to develop new drugs although drug development is an extremely technical and enormously expensive operation. Among the contributors to new drug development, pharmacologists are more concerned in evaluating “new chemical entities” (NCE). Synthesis and evaluation of thousands of NCEs are usually necessary for new drugs to be introduced in the market. Research and development of new drugs have
been done under strict government regulations which have greatly increased over the past couple of decades.
Drug development comprises of two steps.
a) Preclinical development and
b) Clinical development
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