Planning your first-in-human trial

A first-in-human (FIH) clinical trial is a significant milestone in the development of a potential new drug in that it will be the first opportunity for a drug development sponsor to evaluate the impact of their new chemical entity (NCE) or biologic in humans. Typically, FIH trials with compounds intended for treatment of diseases other than cancers or certain rare non-malignant diseases are conducted using normal healthy volunteers (NHVs), unless there is an ethical concern (such as known toxicity) in administering the investigational drug to an otherwise healthy population.