ASSIGNMENT 3.1: FINDING DIFFERENT DRUGS TO CURE CANCER

by

Wanda G. Sellers
August 21, 2013
English 115
Instructor: Professor Audrey L. Vaughan

Cancer is a very devastating disease. It attacks every organ in the human body. Many people in the United States and in foreign countries have cancer. Cancer affects many people’s lives and many more people are being diagnosed with cancer each day. Everyday scientists and researchers are trying to come up with new medicines to cure cancer. In this paper, I will discuss the process of developing new drugs to treat cancer, and the costs of developing these drugs. According to the oncologists at the website Cancer.net, more doctors and scientists are always looking for better ways to treat people with cancer. To do this, they are constantly developing and studying new drugs as well as looking for new ways to use the existing drugs. When scientists are developing new drugs for cancer patients, there are many researchers involved. They must find the right chemicals before testing them to see how effective they are in helping people. Sometimes this process takes from 5 to 12 years. Sometimes it takes longer than that. After the new drugs are developed, more time has to be allowed for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve the drugs before cancer patients can take them according to Cancer.net. They do this by experimenting on animals first and then testing the new drugs on people. All new medicines must go through a lot of laboratory testing to test for side effects. These medicines may have numerous side effects. Some of the side effects are suicidal thoughts, depression, nausea, and drowsiness. Costs for research and development of new drugs to treat cancer are very high. The cost of these drugs can start from 125 billion dollars, and go up to 297 billion dollars every year. The price of developing these drugs increases the costs to the patients because the pharmaceutical costs are very high. On the average, it will cost 359 million dollars to develop a new drug. This process of discovering and developing new drugs to treat cancer takes many years before it is available to doctors and patients. By using volunteers, the scientists and researchers study the effectiveness of new drugs to treat cancer. Effectiveness has three different phases. Anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 people are used as volunteers so that doctors and laboratories can do the research on human beings to test for side effects, treatment and safety. It can take up to 3 years to find out if the new drugs are effective and safe. All of the research and money spent in developing and finding these different medicines to treat cancer are in hope of finding a cure. The