without prior human use, how is a drug determined safe enough for human clinical trials?

Question

without prior human use, how is a drug determined safe enough for human clinical trials?

In: Biology

Answer 1

By testing on animals, normally. Most mammals have sufficiently similar biology that it will catch the worst drug interactions, so you can be pretty sure it won’t kill them, and it’s safe enough to give to willing volunteers who know its an experimental drug.

They tend to favour mice and rats for these tests, hence “lab rat” as an expression, and the premise of “Pinky and The Brain”