People from all around the world volunteer to take part in clinical trials. The development of medical therapies is one of the fastest growing industries in many countries as well as one of the most important. Every day, medical professionals, pharmacists, mathematicians, chemists, biologists, and others lend their services to the discovery of new treatments for life-threatening illnesses and chronic diseases. These treatments may be the first in a particular therapeutic area, or they may be improved versions of existing drugs. To participate in a clinical trial is to perform a greatly needed and highly respected deed for the advancement of science and humankind.

You may participate in a clinical trial because it is self-gratifying; you will be contributing to a research effort intended to help both physicians and fellow patients. You may get involved because you feel that medication should be improved. Clinical trials are also a way to secure study-related medical care if you do not have your own health insurance.

Participants may be those afflicted with a condition or disease for which, in their opinion, no adequate treatment is currently offered. Patients in clinical trials are the first to receive new, successful drug therapies before they become available to the public world. Volunteers are the first to benefit from improved therapies when they are discovered. Volunteers are cared for, and their health monitored, for a considerable trial- and post-trial period.