出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2015/02/25 09:20:21」(JST)
The phases of clinical research are the steps in which scientists do experiments with a health intervention in an attempt to find enough evidence for a process which would be useful as a medical treatment. In the case of pharmaceutical study, the phases start with drug design and drug discovery, go on to animal testing, then start by testing in only a few human subjects and expand to test in many study participants if the trial seems safe and useful.
Clinical trials involving new drugs are commonly classified into four phases. Clinical trials of drugs may not fit into a single phase. For example, some may blend from phase I to phase II or from phase II to phase III. Therefore, it may be easier to think of early phase studies and late phase studies.[1] The drug-development process will normally proceed through all four phases over many years. If the drug successfully passes through Phases I, II, and III, it will usually be approved by the national regulatory authority for use in the general population. Phase IV are 'post-approval' studies.
| Summary of clinical trial phases | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phase | Primary goal | Dose | Patient monitor | Typical number of participants | Notes |
| Preclinical | Testing of drug in non-human subjects, to gather efficacy, toxicity and pharmacokinetic information | unrestricted | A graduate level researcher (Ph.D.) | not applicable (in vitro and in vivo only) | |
| Phase 0 | Pharmacodynamics and Pharmacokinetics particularly oral bioavailability and half-life of the drug | very small, subtherapeutic | clinical researcher | 10 people | often skipped for phase I |
| Phase I | Testing of drug on healthy volunteers for dose-ranging | often subtherapeutic, but with ascending doses | clinical researcher | 20-100 | determines whether drug is safe to check for efficacy |
| Phase II | Testing of drug on patients to assess efficacy and safety | therapeutic dose | clinical researcher | 100-300 | determines whether drug can have any efficacy; at this point, the drug is not presumed to have any therapeutic effect whatsoever |
| Phase III | Testing of drug on patients to assess efficacy and safety | therapeutic dose | clinical researcher and personal physician | 1000-2000 | determines a drug's therapeutic effect; at this point, the drug is presumed to have some effect |
| Phase IV | Postmarketing surveillance – watching drug use in public | therapeutic dose | personal physician | anyone seeking treatment from their physician | watch drug's long term effects |
| Phase V | translational research | no dosing | none | all reported use | research on data collected |
Before pharmaceutical companies start clinical trials on a drug, they conduct extensive pre-clinical studies. These involve in vitro (test tube or cell culture) and in vivo (animal) experiments using wide-ranging doses of the study drug to obtain preliminary efficacy, toxicity and pharmacokinetic information. Such tests assist pharmaceutical companies to decide whether a drug candidate has scientific merit for further development as an investigational new drug.
Phase 0 is a recent designation for exploratory, first-in-human trials conducted in accordance with the United States Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) 2006 Guidance on Exploratory Investigational New Drug (IND) Studies.[2] Phase 0 trials are also known as human microdosing studies and are designed to speed up the development of promising drugs or imaging agents by establishing very early on whether the drug or agent behaves in human subjects as was expected from preclinical studies. Distinctive features of Phase 0 trials include the administration of single subtherapeutic doses of the study drug to a small number of subjects (10 to 15) to gather preliminary data on the agent's pharmacokinetics (what the body does to the drugs).[3]
A Phase 0 study gives no data on safety or efficacy, being by definition a dose too low to cause any therapeutic effect. Drug development companies carry out Phase 0 studies to rank drug candidates in order to decide which has the best pharmacokinetic parameters in humans to take forward into further development. They enable go/no-go decisions to be based on relevant human models instead of relying on sometimes inconsistent animal data.
Phase I trials are the first stage of testing in human subjects. Normally, a small group of 20–100 healthy volunteers will be recruited. This phase is designed to assess the safety (pharmacovigilance), tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of a drug. These trials are often conducted in a clinical trial clinic, where the subject can be observed by full-time staff. These clinical trial clinics are often run by contract research organization (CROs) who conduct these studies on behalf of pharmaceutical companies or other research investigators. The subject who receives the drug is usually observed until several half-lives of the drug have passed. Phase I trials also normally include dose-ranging, also called dose escalation studies, so that the best and safest dose can be found and to discover the point at which a compound is too poisonous to administer.[4] The tested range of doses will usually be a fraction[quantify] of the dose that caused harm in animal testing. Phase I trials most often include healthy volunteers. However, there are some circumstances when real patients are used, such as patients who have terminal cancer or HIV and the treatment is likely to make healthy individuals ill. These studies are usually conducted in tightly controlled clinics called CPUs (Central Pharmacological Units), where participants receive 24-hour medical attention and oversight. In addition to the previously mentioned unhealthy individuals, “patients who have typically already tried and failed to improve on the existing standard therapies"[1] may also participate in phase I trials. Volunteers are paid an inconvenience fee for their time spent in the volunteer centre. Pay depends on length of participation.
There are different kinds of phase I trial:
Once a dose or range of doses is determined, the next goal is to evaluate whether the drug has any biological activity or effect.[1] Phase II trials are performed on larger groups (100-300) and are designed to assess how well the drug works, as well as to continue Phase I safety assessments in a larger group of volunteers and patients. Genetic testing is common, particularly when there is evidence of variation in metabolic rate.[1] When the development process for a new drug fails, this usually occurs during Phase II trials when the drug is discovered not to work as planned, or to have toxic effects.
Phase II studies are sometimes divided into Phase IIA and Phase IIB.
Some trials combine Phase I and Phase II, and test both efficacy and toxicity.
Some researchers argue that phase II studies are generally smaller than they ought to be.[1]
This phase is designed to assess the effectiveness of the new intervention and, thereby, its value in clinical practice.[1] The percentage of Phase II trials that proceed to Phase III, as of 2008, is 18%.[6] Phase III studies are randomized controlled multicenter trials on large patient groups (300–3,000 or more depending upon the disease/medical condition studied) and are aimed at being the definitive assessment of how effective the drug is, in comparison with current 'gold standard' treatment. Because of their size and comparatively long duration, Phase III trials are the most expensive, time-consuming and difficult trials to design and run, especially in therapies for chronic medical conditions. Phase III trials of chronic conditions or diseases often have a short follow-up period for evaluation, relative to the period of time the intervention might be used in practice.[1] This is sometimes called the "pre-marketing phase" because it actually measures consumer response to the drug.
It is common practice that certain Phase III trials will continue while the regulatory submission is pending at the appropriate regulatory agency. This allows patients to continue to receive possibly lifesaving drugs until the drug can be obtained by purchase. Other reasons for performing trials at this stage include attempts by the sponsor at "label expansion" (to show the drug works for additional types of patients/diseases beyond the original use for which the drug was approved for marketing), to obtain additional safety data, or to support marketing claims for the drug. Studies in this phase are by some companies categorized as "Phase IIIB studies."[7][8]
While not required in all cases, it is typically expected that there be at least two successful Phase III trials, demonstrating a drug's safety and efficacy, in order to obtain approval from the appropriate regulatory agencies such as FDA (USA), or the EMA (European Union),
Once a drug has proved satisfactory after Phase III trials, the trial results are usually combined into a large document containing a comprehensive description of the methods and results of human and animal studies, manufacturing procedures, formulation details, and shelf life. This collection of information makes up the "regulatory submission" that is provided for review to the appropriate regulatory authorities[9] in different countries. They will review the submission, and, it is hoped, give the sponsor approval to market the drug.
Most drugs undergoing Phase III clinical trials can be marketed under FDA norms with proper recommendations and guidelines through a New Drug Application (NDA) containing all manufacturing, pre-clinical, and clinical data. In case of any adverse effects being reported anywhere, the drugs need to be recalled immediately from the market. While most pharmaceutical companies refrain from this practice, it is not abnormal to see many drugs undergoing Phase III clinical trials in the market.[10]
Phase IV trial is also known as postmarketing surveillance Trial. Phase IV trials involve the safety surveillance (pharmacovigilance) and ongoing technical support of a drug after it receives permission to be sold. Phase IV studies may be required by regulatory authorities or may be undertaken by the sponsoring company for competitive (finding a new market for the drug) or other reasons (for example, the drug may not have been tested for interactions with other drugs, or on certain population groups such as pregnant women, who are unlikely to subject themselves to trials). The safety surveillance is designed to detect any rare or long-term adverse effects over a much larger patient population and longer time period than was possible during the Phase I-III clinical trials. Harmful effects discovered by Phase IV trials may result in a drug being no longer sold, or restricted to certain uses: recent examples involve cerivastatin (brand names Baycol and Lipobay), troglitazone (Rezulin) and rofecoxib (Vioxx).
The entire process of a drug from lab to this point may take approximately 12 to 18 years (but not always), often costing over $1bn.[11][12]
Phase V is a growing term used in the literature of translational research to refer to comparative effectiveness research and community-based research; it is used to signify the integration of a new clinical treatment into widespread public health practice.[13]
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| リンク元 | 「第III相臨床試験」「第三相臨床試験」「phase 3 clinical trial」 |
| 関連記事 | 「trial」「phase」「II」「I」「clinical trial」 |