Animal Testing

The UK recently announced plans to phase out animal testing. Here in the US, from monkeys to pigs and dogs, the Trump administration has taken new action to cut back further on experiments done on animals to approve new medicines. Scientific advances make that more possible than ever, as Lisa Fletcher reports.

When it comes to developing new drugs, we all want safe and effective treatments, but how we do that is changing faster than ever before. Back to ancient Greece, people have been experimenting on animals to get a better understanding of human biology. Testing drugs on them came much later.

In 1937, the deaths of more than ninety people taking a new antibiotic for strep saw Congress pass a law mandating animal testing. The argument: that using animals would predict how drugs would work in humans.

The problem is that over the decades, animal testing has proven to be ineffective much of the time.

Zaher Nahle: Ninety-five percent of experimental drugs that are tested on animals and receive perfect scores there, approval for safety and efficacy go on, ninety-five percent of them, go on to fail in humans.

Zaher Nahle is a PhD scientist with the Center for Humane Economy, an animal protection organization. He began his career doing biomedical research, including on animals.

Lisa: So what you're saying is these drugs do great on animals, but once they get to people, all bets are off.

Nahle: They fail miserably. Ninety-five percent. What kind of industry can continue like this? Not only that, Lisa, we are missing a lot of opportunities here because almost invariably, when a drug fails in an animal model, it is prematurely abandoned. Although it can be perfectly safe for humans, you see.

Animal testing has long faced scientific doubts and public concern over animal suffering. Yet it remains a multi-billion dollar industry, with the federal government the biggest spender. But attitudes in Washington are shifting. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary says today's science no longer supports animal testing.

Dr. Marty Makary: And on a personal level, Lisa, I don't believe God made these creatures on planet earth for us to torture and abuse with all of the testing that goes on. Most of it is unnecessary. I've been in the medical field for a long time. Most of the use of animals in medical research is unnecessary. We can use common sense and gold standard science, and it turns out the animal testing is not a very good predictor of toxicity in humans.

Finding an alternative to animal testing, one that's more effective, has been Dr Donald Ingber's mission for nearly 20 years.

Dr. Donald Ingber: I love animals, I did not like working with animals, and so when I came to Harvard from Yale, when I was about 28, I definitely had in my mind, can I do a lot of this work in vitro rather than animals. So that was definitely in the back of my head.

He founded Harvard University's Wyss Institute, a research body, and is at the forefront of new technology that mimics human organs and allows researchers to safely test drugs on them.

Lisa: What is an organ-on-a-chip?

Dr. Ingber: An organ-on-a-chip is a small device the size of a thumb drive. It has tiny little hollow channels and we line them with, believe it or not, living human cells. Because we mimic the structure of the lung with living cells and the physical environment, we actually replicate complex functions, including responses to diseases, drugs, toxins, and viral infections.

And the technology is already having a positive effect, speeding drug development and saving money.

Dr. Ingber: It's estimated that it could save billions of dollars, two to three billion dollars, just based on the liver prediction by preventing late-stage failures in clinical trials, where you spend hundreds of millions and then you get there, and then you fail, which happens often.

Lisa: So you're testing on humans without testing on humans.

Dr. Ingber: Exactly, yeah

Dr. Ingber and other champions of this 'organ on a chip' technology, encouraged by a 2022 federal law called the FDA Modernization Act 2.0. That allows for alternatives to animal testing for drug and biological product applications.

Dr. Ingber: And so this is a big announcement recently from the FDA, that not only will they consider data, but they actually may even accelerate the review. Their intent is to phase out animal testing over three to five years. That's what they say, and using alternative methods and organ chips is one.

Next up, Makary says he will make sure the FDA finalizes those regulations mandated by Congress.

Dr. Makary: We're going to not only conform, we're going to exceed all of the expectations in reducing animal testing. We are seeing drug applications come in now where they have an outline for animal testing, and we're telling them, we don't want you to do this animal testing. We don't think it's going to inform us about drug safety. Use computational modeling and other technology instead. And it has the promise, if we do it right, of not just doing what's ethical for animals, but of speeding up the approval process because that's a long time that's spent on animal testing.

Lisa: Reducing costs.

Dr. Makary: Reducing costs, and ultimately those lower R&D costs can translate to lower drug prices for everyday Americans, which is a massive priority for this administration

Replacing what doesn't work with what does. A future where better science means safer drugs and fewer animals suffering in the process.

For Full Measure, I'm Lisa Fletcher in Boston.