top of page

Accelerating drug discovery in animals

Mouse

Biotechnology companies are increasingly looking to large-scale animal studies, that can test multiple potential treatments at once, to develop new drugs, as reported in a recent article.


Currently, the discovery of new drugs is based mainly on tests on cells and tissues in the lab, which allow many compounds to be analysed and screened in one go (they are then typically assessedĀ for safety in animals).


An article in Nature Biotechnology describes how, thanks to new affordable cell techniques, this step is now also being done in living animals. Companies are able to scale up this drug screening so that in a single animal, potentially thousands of administered therapies can be tracked for their effects on individual cells ā€“ so-called ā€˜multiplexed in vivoĀ screening.ā€™ Computation and AI make it possible to automate the process and rapidly analyse complex data.


The idea is to bring animal testing to an earlier stage of drug development to reduce costs and time, and the number of animals that may be needed to get preclinical results, as well as improve efficiency.


This is showing promise, with the US company Gordian BiotechnologyĀ reporting that 80% of targets for treating osteoarthritis, as identified by multiplex animal screening, were validated in patient tissues.


The article also describes other useful applications, including predicting how therapeutic antibodies will behave and improving the development of gene therapies.

Recent Posts

See All

London Office

ā€‹

3.04 LABS Atrium, The Stables Market,

Chalk Farm Rd

London NW1 8AH
Tel: +44 (0)20 3355 3095
Email: info@eara.eu 

Brussels Office

ā€‹

Spaces European District

Rue Belliard

401040 Brussels,

Belgium

Copyright © 2023

European Animal Research Association

All rights reserved.

Subscribe to the EARA News Digest weekly newsletter

Thanks for subscribing!

bottom of page