The Process It

Takes To
Develop A New
Cancer Drug
By: Mollie Sutton
English 1302
Dr. Johnson
4/7/2023
Introduction
For cancer drugs to be approved they need to go through many
phases before they are used and bought by consumers. The
phases needed to be completed before a drug is approved include:
• Phase 0
• Phase 1
• Phase 2
• Phase 3
Developing new cancer drugs requires a lot of time and money so
conducting these trials has to be thoroughly planned out and
budgeted to relieve some expenses.
Phase 0
This is the very first phase to be
conducted and is part of the preclinical
trial where scientists understand how
they should develop a new cancer drug
and what needs to be targeted. In this
preclinical trial, a estimation is done for
the proper dose to be used in phase I and
whether it is safe and clinically
beneficial.
Phase I
This is the first stage of the clinical trial
which tests for the best dose to be given for
the treatment, if the medication is safe, the
allotted time the drug needs to respond to the
type of cancer, and any side effects that may
come about while taking this treatment. This
is the ‘creation’ phase where the medication
is compounded around the type of cancer
being treated.
 Phase II/III
These phases test for the effectiveness of the drug and if it is better than other cancer treatments
already created. These phases are where a lot of problems/fails can occur mostly related to the
drug not being safe, or effective, or the trial revealing that the therapeutic focus changes.