Non-Animal Lab Testing - Compelling Reasons to Accelerate Innovation

This article from the Boston Globe reminded me of the cascade of reasons why businesses should accelerate innovation to develop and bring to market non-animal lab testing models in pharmaceutical drug development (not to mention the cosmetics and other industries). Just about an hour ago I was watching a PBS Nature documentary showing how chimpanzees used in lab testing die young, after a life of suffering in captivity, including one crippled by a polio vaccine experiment. I cringe at the mere thought of this.

But it's not just that civilized humans should think twice before inflicting pain on innocent animals; it often does not yield the desired scientific outcomes nor business results, to use animal models. According to lecture materials by a UCSC professor with whom I had taken a course on drug development, animal studies are sometimes only 50% indicative of how humans will react to drugs; that equals 50% failure of getting a promising drug candidate to NDA (New Drug Application) approval. And years of research washed down the drain along with millions of dollars. The opportunity cost of not spending these resources on advancing drugs that could actually cure humans seems huge.

Entelos is one company working on non-animal models. I think we live in a society that should be skilled, educated, and smart enough to start investing more aggressively and at a far faster rate in solutions that could accelerate drug development while safeguarding life and well being of other creatures with whom we share this planet.

What are Italian companies and researchers doing in this area?