Iowans don’t have to travel far too find clinical trials of new medications being developed by pharmaceutical makers. In Greater Des Moines alone, 28 drug trials are currently recruiting patients, according to “Research in Your Backyard: Developing Cures, Creating Jobs,” released this week by the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America in conjunction with the Biotechnology Association of Iowa.

 Biopharmaceutical research companies have conducted more than 1,100 clinical trials of new medicines in collaboration with Iowa’s clinical research centers and medical schools and hospitals since 1999, according to the report. Approximately half of those trials targeted the nation’s six most debilitating chronic diseases: asthma, cancer, diabetes, heart, disease, mental illnesses and stroke.