The half life is the time required for the amount of the drug or the plasma concentration of the drug to decrease by 50% . The half life has units of time.
The half life of a drug is constant within a patient (dose and concentration independent) when the drug elimination process follows first-order kinetics. However different patients may have different half lives for the same drug.
The half life is a very important parameter, because it indicates how fast the drug is eliminated from the body. Drugs with shorter half lives are eliminated faster than those with longer half lives.