Teachers' resources

All you need to help your students explore drug development.

This issue's student activity is based around a simulation of a pharmaceutical company planning future spending. It gives students the chance to role-play various characters working for the company and to consider which pharmaceutical they should develop.

Three different drugs - tackling obesity, HIV/AIDS and heart disease – have had successful phase II trials but the company can only afford to run expensive phase III trials on one of them. But which one will it be? Students will review each of the proposals, take part in a debate to discuss the issues at stake and vote on the drug they think the company should invest in.

To help you plan a lesson around the activity, see the teachers' notes [Word 70KB].

Planted questions [Word 30KB] can be used to involve more students in the debate.

Student activity sheet [PDF 2MB]

Homework sheet [PDF 40KB]