What is clinical research? It is the systematic scientific study of testing a new drug or a new medical device, or other types of therapeutic solutions on humans to verify its efficacy, safety and benefits. Effort will also be made to find out the possible adverse effects it may have on patients.
Experts then study and analyze the data generated by clinical research professionals to determine whether the drug or device under test is safe enough for large scale use and can be commercially produced.
Pharmaceutical companies the world over spend billions of dollars on research and development of drugs. Most of the money and time spent on development of drugs is consumed by clinical trials of the new drugs and devices. As such the clinical research field offers plenty of job opportunities.
With the technological development the lifestyle throughout the world has undergone drastic changes leading to many new diseases and health problems. As a result, clinical research is expected to get a boost. The emphasis, hereafter, is likely to be on finding drugs for new aliments, lifestyle problems and diseases that have no cure yet. In effect there will be thousands of job opportunities for scientists, researchers and technicians in almost all countries.
According industry estimates, the US alone hires 210,000 clinical research professionals, besides many more technicians while in the UK more than 70,000 professionals are in the field.