| All for human
safety
By the time a new medicine arrives on the pharmacy shelves,
it usually has between eight and ten years of intensive research
behind it. A long time. But that is what it takes to test
the efficacy and safety of a substance to the highest level.
The sole purpose of this is to ensure that the substance is
as effective and safe as possible for the patient to use.
Animal studies are crucial to achieving safety and maximum
efficacy - and above all, they are a legal requirement. The
great advances made in the development of substitute and supplementary
methods have enabled the number of animal studies to be reduced
significantly in recent years. But there is a certain phase
of medical research in which the data from test tube studies
are simply no longer enough. Because precise statements have
to be made: what effects and side effects will a certain substance
have in the body?
On the following pages, you can find out more about when
in the drug development process animal studies are essential.
And: which alternatives have resulted in a reduction in the
number of animal studies now required?
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