Patient Network Newsletter- February 15, 2017 | ANNOUNCEMENTS

FDA Drug Trials Snapshots and Diversity When Testing New Drugs, By: John J. Whyte, M.D., M.P.H., Director of Professional Affairs and Stakeholder Engagement at FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Did you know that some drugs affect men and women differently? For instance, women are often prescribed only half the dose that men take of the sleep medication, Ambien (zolpidem). Race and ethnicity also make a difference. One type of drug commonly used to treat high blood pressure, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, has been shown to be less effective in African American patients than in white patients. These are just two examples of why it’s important to test drugs on the appropriate patient populations. This is especially true for drugs we call “novel drugs,” new medicines that have never been used before in the U.S. marketplace. Over the past two years, FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) approved 67 novel drugs. So it’s no surprise that in recent years, representation in clinical trials of certain subgroups, such as people of different ages, races, ethnic groups, and genders, has become of growing interest. To read the rest of this post, see FDA Voice Blog on February 13, 2017