Study: Older adults underrepresented in trials of drugs they may regularly use

Older adults are not well represented in clinical trials of drugs and biologics they may regularly use, according to recent research published in JAMA Network Open.

“Data on safety and efficacy of medications across the entire older age span are important to appropriately care for this growing older population,” S. W. Johnny Lau, PhD, with the Office of Clinical Pharmacology, Office of Translational Sciences at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) in the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and colleagues wrote in their study. “Although there are long-standing FDA guidances that the clinical trial participant pool should represent the population that will ultimately receive the product, there continues to be room for improvement.”clini