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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

PSI Webinar - Main statistical approaches for quantitative decision-making in drug development

We performed a survey among pharmaceutical companies, targeting people with different profiles (statisticians, non-statisticians and decision-makers) working at different stages of the clinical development (study level, development level or portfolio level).

A PSI ToxSIG webinar - Big Data, Data Science, AI and other buzzwords: What does the Data-Driven Hype mean for Pharmaceutical Analytics?

The last 15 years has seen a massive shift in the role of data and analytics, driven by the increased hype around big data, data science, machine learning and AI. This presents both challenges and opportunities for analytic teams. This webinar will strip back the hype to look at what these buzzwords really mean, and talk about the impact this is having on the role, remit and operating model of analytic teams in the life sciences industry.

PSI New Starters Half-Day Networking Event

An opportunity to meet statisticians from across the pharmaceutical industry in a relaxed and informal setting. An exciting program of events and a chance to work in small groups on a data analysis challenge. Lunch provided.

A PSI Training Course - Practical Approaches to Designing Adaptive Clinical Trials

This hands-on course will provide a deep dive into 4 software packages used to design adaptive clinical trials. The course will start by providing a general overview of adaptive designs, explaining the different type of adaptations possible and the benefits of each design. Following this, participants will be given the opportunity to have a go at designing trials in R (using RPACTS), EAST, FACTS, and nQuery.

PSI Training Course - Bayesian Practical Course using R and SAS

This practical training course will give a deep dive into performing Bayesian analyses in R and SAS. It is aimed at statisticians who need to be able to conduct Bayesian analyses as part of their day to day work. By the end of the course participants will be able to conduct their own analyses.

Medical Statistics Careers Event 2020

Our annual PSI Medical Statistics Careers Event, will be held at the De Montfort University in Leicester on Wednesday 4th March 2020.

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 6 sessions in continental Europe and 3 - 4 sessions in the UK. It promises to be a truly memorable course.

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