Animal experiments. Do we care?

I have spent a day observing an EU-supported event concerning the use of animals as a screening tool for Neurological drugs.

The hit rate is about 500 drugs tested for 1drug that makes it to MS

www.multi-part.org

One aspect being discussed is whether we need multi-national studies to determine if the drugs are worth developing for humans and importantly how this could be achieved.
What do you think? A sensible solution or Not?

Will Pharma buy into this?

This is more likely to show that some drugs are not useful. 

People must remember the vast majority of animal experiments are about looking at mechanisms and have very,very little to do with human treatments, despite the way they may be served up by the scientist and media.

However, without effective and translatable experimental design that reflects the clinical situation of use of the treatment, such as dose and timing, then animal experiments,no matter how well powered,blinded and randomised they may be, will continue to fail to translate into human benefit,

Likewise until Neuros come up with effective trial designs and outcome measures that are fit for purpose and actually mimic the studies that are used to justify the studies then good ideas will continue to be flushed down the toilet.  

We learned this in RRMS, let's not make the same mistakes with Progressive MS and repair.

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