Drug trials bring national research home to small towns

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Drug trials bring national research home to small towns

03/14/2004

Associated Press

In the hope of finding a cure for his diabetes, Kent sen drives from Lake

Oswego to Medford every other Sunday to get medicine for free that he couldn't

buy at any price.

The next day, the 52-year-old transportation planner leaves his motel room and

drives to the Clinical Research Institute. Nurse technicians draw a blood

sample, check his blood pressure, give him a thorough physical and send him home

with another two weeks' supply of a drug that might cure his diabetes.

sen is one of about 60 people across the United States testing a medicine

that researchers hope will rejuvenate cells in the pancreas that produce

insulin.

When he learned about the drug trial on the Internet, he jumped at the chance to

participate, even though it meant two monthly trips to Medford for three months.

" I've had diabetes for more than 35 years, " he said during a break in a recent

medical exam. " I've taken over 20,000 injections in my life. You can imagine if

that was something in your daily routine, you'd want to get rid of it. "

Dr. Kerwin arranged to have the drug tested in Medford. An allergist by

training, Kerwin has conducted drug trials alongside his regular practice for 10

years.

Kerwin is perhaps the most-visible part-time medical researcher in Southern

Oregon. But he's by no means the only one. Dozens of Rogue Valley physicians

have recruited hundreds of patients for drug trials while they continue to treat

patients.

At the Medford Medical Clinic alone, physicians had 37 drug trials under way

during the first week in March. Local doctors have studies in progress or being

organized for drugs that treat everything from asthma and Alzheimer's disease to

depression, drug addiction and prostate cancer.

Testing drugs for efficacy and side effects is a critical phase of the long and

expensive process of bringing new medicines to market. Pharmaceutical companies

must test their promising drugs on thousands of people before they can win

market approval from the federal Food and Drug Administration. Rather than try

to recruit all the testers in one metropolitan area, they often spread the

testing among dozens of smaller communities to ensure that the drugs will be

tested on a wide range of people.

It's sometimes easier to recruit 10 people in each of two dozen small

communities than 250 people in a metropolitan area, said Alan Goldhammer, a vice

president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a national

trade association known by the acronym of PhRMA.

" If five pharmaceutical companies are studying a new allergy drug and they each

need 2,500 patients for a trial, that's 12,500 patients, " Goldhammer said.

" They're not all going to find those patients in the same area. "

Goldhammer said electronic data transmission makes small-town drug trials

feasible. " All the reports are done electronically, " he said. " It's not as

complicated a business as it formerly was. "

Patients who enroll in studies generally get free medical care and free drugs

for the duration of the trial as well as a small cash stipend (typically $100 to

$300) to compensate them for their time. In exchange, they agree to undergo

regular medical examinations for as long as the study lasts.

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On the Net:

Information about many clinical trials can be found at a Web site maintained by

the National Institutes of Health: www.clinicaltrials.gov

___

Information from: Mail Tribune, http://www.mailtribune.com/

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