What do drug trials primarily involve?

Drug trials primarily involve a series of rigorous testing phases to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a new drug before it reaches the market. This process includes both animal testing and, increasingly, the use of computer simulations to predict how the drug behaves in the body.

Animal testing allows researchers to understand the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of a drug, providing critical information on how it affects living organisms and identifying potential side effects. Computer simulations can model these interactions, reducing the number of animal tests needed and refining the drug development process.

While patient feedback and surveys are utilized in later phases of drug trials to gather data on how the drug performs in human populations, these aspects come into play after the initial phases where animal testing and simulations are conducted. Direct human experimentation occurs in later phases of clinical trials but is not typically the primary focus before advancing to these stages. Field studies in communities, while valuable for gathering population data, are not the mainstay of drug trials. Thus, the strong emphasis on the initial experimentation with animals and simulations makes this the correct answer.