Clinical trials and transethnic pharmacology.

It is generally agreed that the advance of a global economy must be accompanied by global drug development. Thus, more intense effort, time and expense must be given to the study of overall global population, which will ultimately be exposed to the drug in development. Race and ethnicity of the ultimate drug consumer must be evaluated, and not only in broad terms. Ethnic and racial representations must be considered in clinical trials. The differences in response to drug action in various ethnic and racial groups must be evaluated to provide information for the physician in practice, who is faced with an increasingly nonhomogeneous population, and who must prescribe medications for those patients. The practising physician urgently requires international, crosscultural collaborative studies, using standardised methods applicable to different cultural settings.