Are clinical trials safe and helpful for me?

Are clinical trials safe and helpful for me?

Friday, 19 January 2018

Maya Zlatanova CEO FindMeCure discusses clinical trials and how helpful and safe they really are.

The two questions seem different and similar all at the same time. But not if you ask a patient. At the moment, approximately 5 % of people know what a clinical trial is. At the same time, there is an increasing number of people who are disappointed by their current treatment or have no treatment at all.

Do they have an alternative?

Yes, they do - clinical trials testing promising new treatments are continuously proving they are safe and work better than everything else known. I agree that not all clinical trials are suitable for all patients, so:

How do you find out the clinical trials for you?

IAPO through Patient Solidarity Day chose a theme that fits FindMeCure Foundation the most: Power through Knowledge. Together with the team behind the platform changing the way people access clinical trials, we believe that if you know something good enough you can benefit from it. This is why together with IAPO we decided to empower our members and everyone out there in this situation to know more about clinical trials in order make maximum use of available trials and find a solution which is fit for them. And we believe that Knowledge is Power.

Since last December, FindMeCure Foundation which is the Patient Awareness Program of FindMeCure, initiated a series of webinars explaining the complexity of clinical trials. The first kick-off session was dedicated to the topics explaining the basic regulations, patients’ rights and risks. The main focus was to explain the fact that different patients with the same condition might benefit from different clinical trials because of the difference in location, age, therapies/drugs taken etc. A major detail is the stage of the clinical trial. Each trial is divided into 4 phases. The later the phase, the more proofs there are for the treatment to be better than everything existing. Many of the participants in the webinar were surprised by the fact that some of the drugs that are already in the pharmacy are still in trial but in the late phase. Eligibility criteria are not created to make things more complicated but to ensure patient safety and that we can really benefit from the treatment in research.

If you want to listen to the full webinar, please follow this link. Next month we will have the first dedicated webinar on clinical trials for people having chronic pain. If you want to participate or you have an idea of a different webinar topic in the area of clinical trials, please contact me at maya@findmecure.com.