"We want to find out if they're ineffective in the smallest number of patients and get definitive information as tully in the development process as possible," said Dr. The new model, a so-called "phase 0" clinical trial, promises to streamline the costly and time-consuming drug development process, helping to deliver good drugs to people who need them more quickly.

'Phase 0' Trials Aim to Speed Cancer Drug Development -- Even after years of painstaking research and testing, only a small percentage of cancer agents make it from the laboratory to the patient. In a phase I study, the goal is to determine the best way to administer a drug and the maximum dose tolerated with the fewest side effects. As the name implies, a phase 0 trial precedes "phase I" testing, traditionally the first step in the process of human drug testing. Phase 0 studies expose a small number of people to low doses of a drug over a limited period of time -- seven days or less.

Doroshow, director of the division of cancer treatment and diagnosis at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.

So scientists have come up with a way to weed out the duds earlier in the process and speed good medications to the marketplace.