Medac and chiron have begun collaborations to develop animal-free drug testing methods for the pharmaceutical industry.
In this partnership, chiron will provide its organ-on chip technology, which places human cells on chips and allows testers to determine the efficacy of drugs.
Medac will provide methotrexate, which is the gold standard currently for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.
Methotrexate will be used as a reference substance on joint cell-containing chips, and will allow researchers to demonstrate the efficacy of their drug compared to this standard of care treatment.
Currently, testing in animals in preclinical phases is still predominant, though animal-free testing methods are progressing significantly.
Although animal testing is an obligatory part of pharmaceutical development and commercialisation, the ethics of the process has encouraged industry members to look for alternative solutions.
Therefore, global pharmaceutical company medac and Dutch startup chiron biotechnology want to further develop animal-free testing methods.
medac's Head of Product Development, Florian Ende, commented: “With this cooperation medac makes an important contribution to the development and establishment of new approach methods (NAMs), which can be used for analysis of drug efficacy using human cells instead of performing animal studies.”
The co-operation between medac and chiron presents a meaningful step towards a forward-looking development of alternative methods for animal free drug development.