In the USA, new drugs no longer have to be tested on animals in order to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – for Europe, the responsible drug agency EMA does not see the time for such a step yet. The EMA in Amsterdam announced that animal testing could not yet be completely dispensed with.
New alternative methods that can be used instead would need to be tested to ensure they are reliable. Last year, the EMA set up a working group to speed up this process.
The United States recently removed the requirement that all drugs be tested on animals before being tested on humans. US President Joe Biden signed a corresponding law in December, which does not prohibit animal testing in drug development, but no longer mandates it either.
Organoids like this one, which consists of brain cells, are intended to replace animal experiments.
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Bild: Jessica Mariani
Instead, in the future, means such as human mini-organs (organoids), multi-organ chips or computer-based processes can be used. Animal protection organizations had welcomed the law.
On average, more than 90 percent of the drug candidates that successfully passed all animal tests would later be sorted out during the clinical trials on humans, according to a reaction from the association Doctors Against Animal Experiments. Reason are often a lack of effect or significant side effects. Certain non-animal methods have already proven to be more accurate and reliable than animal testing.