A major study has reached a significant conclusion about the use of animal species in drug safety testing.
Currently, regulators require testing on two species of animals (rodent and non-rodent), but the study by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), UK, concluded that under certain conditions a single species (preferably rodents) could be used in toxicity testing without risking human safety.
The results, published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, showed that for many compounds, toxicities were similar between the species.
The NC3Rs study was conducted in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies and regulatory bodies, including EARA members Novartis (Switzerland), Sanofi (France), Janssen (Belgium), and Charles River Laboratories (the Netherlands), alongside other institutions.