This study examines the ability of nonclinical adverse event observations to predict human clinical adverse events observed in drug development programs. In addition it examines the relationship between nonclinical and clinical adverse event observations to drug withdrawal and proposes a model to predict drug withdrawal based on these observations. These analyses provide risk assessments useful for both planning patient safety programs, as well as a statistical framework for assessing the future success of drug programs based on nonclinical and clinical observations. Bayesian analyses were undertaken to investigate the connection between nonclinical adverse event observations and observations of that same event in clinical trial for a large set of approved drugs. We employed the same statistical methods used to evaluate the efficacy of diagnostic tests to evaluate the ability of nonclinical studies to predict adverse events in clinical studies, and adverse events in both to predict drug withdrawal. We find that some nonclinical observations suggest higher risk for observing the same adverse event in clinical studies, particularly arrhythmias, QT prolongation, and abnormal hepatic function. However the lack of these events in nonclinical studies is found to not be a good predictor of safety in humans. Some nonclinical and clinical observations appear to be associated with high risk of drug withdrawal from market, especially arrhythmia and hepatic necrosis. We use the method to estimate the overall risk of drug withdrawal from market using the product of the risks from each nonclinical and clinical observation to create a risk profile. 
Prediction of clinical risks by analysis of preclinical and clinical adverse events