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Did you know…?

… that from initial discovery in the laboratory it takes on average 12 years to make a medicine available to patients?

Healthy
To make sure that a medicine is effective at fighting disease and safe to consume, pharmaceutical companies have to spend years rigorously testing it in clinical trials. Statisticians have a very important role to play in designing these trials and analysing the data collected to obtain the evidence needed to show the medicines work.

On this site you can explore how statisticians use their mathematical skills to improve patients’ quality of life and to save lives.

Introduction to Clinical Trials

Testing a medicine in clinical trials is a very long and expensive task, requiring pharmaceutical companies, doctors, hospitals, healthy volunteers, and real patients to work together. The video below, made by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), gives an insight into this journey.

Clinical Trial Quick Facts

  • Usually the first people to try out a new medicine are healthy volunteers. Healthy volunteers are used to find the maximum dose the body can tolerate, then this is used in trials on patients.
  • In a ‘gold standard’ clinical trial neither the patient nor the doctor knows whether the drug being administered is the new experimental one or the control treatment. This is called double blinding.
  • Clinical trials tend to be global, enrolling patients from many countries around the world.
  • It costs over $2.5 billion in research and development costs to bring a drug to market to be prescribed to patients.

Upcoming Events

Visualising the drug harm profile in Randomised Controlled Trials – A Consensus of UK trial researchers

The UKCRC CTU statisticians’ operations group in collaboration with Imperial College London are hosting a one-day consensus meeting to develop recommendations to support researchers in their choice of visualisations for adverse event data in RCT publications.

PSI Webinar: How can PSI, “a community dedicated to leading and promoting the use of statistics within the healthcare industries for the benefit of patients”, help you be more successful in your career?

Have you ever wondered what it takes to be successful as a statistician or data scientist in the healthcare/pharma industry and what can give you the extra edge to develop your career? Come and listen to these industry leaders views on how to be successful and the advantages of being part of the PSI community.

Introduction To Industry Training Course 2020

The ITIT course will take 25 delegates new to the industry on a complete drug development experience from discovery to marketing. They will visit 6 companies from October 2020 to July 2021 to learn about 6 topics from experts in their field. The ITIT course will have 3 sessions in continental Europe and 3 - 4 sessions in the UK. It promises to be a truly memorable course.

A PSI Training Course - R for SAS Users

This course is aimed at Statisticians and Programmers experienced in SAS, but little or no experience with R. An Introduction to R studio and the R language, statistical graphics, programming statistical models, simulations and more…

PSI Toxicology SIG Workshop

PSI Toxicology SIG workshop – 24th and 25th November 2020 The Toxicology SIG provides a forum for statisticians working in regulatory/investigative toxicology, as well as most other pre-clinical areas, to discuss issues and interact with one another. This 1.5-day workshop will involve approximately 20 statisticians, focusing on discussions around “best practice” in the statistical analysis of various data types. The afternoon of Day 1 will include a 4.5 hour Bayesian training course focused towards applications in toxicology/pre-clinical, provided by Prof. Dr. Katja Ickstadt and is included in the workshop fee. The cost will be £270 including VAT per delegate, inclusive of food and one night’s accommodation (and the training course). The workshop is being held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Heathrow. The agenda and topics that will be discussed are yet to be finalised, but please get in touch with gareth.thomas@covance.com if you have suggestions. Full details will be circulated in the coming weeks.

Latest Jobs

Principal / Senior Principal Biostatisticians (Phases II-IV & Statistical Analysis Research Centre)

Covance are currently recruiting for 3 Principal / Senior Principal Biostatisticians in two different departments.

Statistical Director for Health Technology Assessment in Biostatistics

Global pharma company Novo Nordisk are right now looking for a Statistical Director to drive the Health Technology Assessment agenda in the Biostatistical Centre of Expertise in their office just outside Copenhagen.

Statisticians and Statistical Programmers – Senior/Principal/Associate Director/Director - Oncology / Respiratory / CVRM – Early and Late Phase

Would you like to be a part of a Statistical and Programming group, who have direct strategic impact on drug development, playing a key role in getting medicines to patients?