Using new technologies to develop safer medicines

What is it about?

This paper considers some of the non-animal, human-relevant technologies that are becoming available for 'retooling' drug discovery. We look at emerging evidence of their effectiveness and some of the obstacles that might prevent their uptake. We argue that the UK has a tremendous opportunity to seize the initiative in this area, by developing and implementing human-focused methods that may be more predictive of drug safety and efficacy than animal test procedures.

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Why is it important?

This commentary highlights the increasing recognition within industry of the poor ability of animal models to reliably predict safety and efficacy in humans and of the need to 'humanise' drug discovery if the productivity crisis in pharmaceutical research is to be eased.

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