Only five percent of therapies tested on animals are approved for use in humans. Researchers from the University of Zurich have shown this. “These could be therapies that are vital for certain people,” says study leader Benjamin Ineichen.
For the study, he and his team examined 122 existing research articles on 367 different therapies for human diseases (54 different ones). Accordingly, half of the therapies tested on animals led to clinical trials in humans. It took an average of five years for the first major human study to take place and ten years for it to be officially approved.
Good game
Furthermore, the team was able to show that 86 percent of therapies successfully tested on animals were also effective on humans. However, this number is only based on an estimate. An example is various medications for multiple sclerosis (MS), an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. This includes Fingolimod.
However, the substance NXY-059, intended to help stroke patients, was left out of the development process. Therapies based on animal testing repeatedly raise great hopes, but ultimately do not achieve the desired effect on humans. After ten years, 95 percent of therapies tested on animals had never been approved for humans.
False positive results
“It is very likely that the poor quality of some animal studies has led to false-positive results, meaning that the data suggests a therapeutic effect when in reality there is no such effect,” Ineichen said. “This means that these drugs will later be excluded from very strict testing on humans.”
The study was published Thursday in the journal PLOS Biology.
Source: Krone
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