Course
How a drug is proven
Work out what a trial actually shows, and why most promising results never become medicines.
The shape of it
7 lessons
About 25 minutes in total. Your progress is kept on this device — no account, nothing sent anywhere.
Course complete
Put your name on it and print it, or save it as a PDF. Nothing is sent anywhere.
The lessons
Getting better is not evidence
Explain why people improve without any treatment working.
7 steps · about 4 min
Randomising is the whole trick
Say what a coin toss does that careful matching cannot.
7 steps · about 4 min
Expectation is itself a treatment
Explain what blinding protects and who it protects it from.
7 steps · about 4 min
What each phase actually asks
Match a trial stage to the question it can answer.
7 steps · about 4 min
Measuring what you can reach
Tell apart a marker that moved and a life that improved.
7 steps · about 4 min
The trials you never see
Predict how missing results distort a published average.
7 steps · about 4 min
Approval is about a population
State what an approval does and does not establish.
7 steps · about 4 min