HUMAN guinea pigs could soon be testing small quantities of experimental drugs, making it quicker and easier to weed out those that don’t work.
Nine out of ten experimental drugs don’t make it to market because of biochemical reactions that didn’t surface in the animal models. Now the US Food and Drug Administration has changed its testing criteria to help pinpoint such “dud drugs” before they ever get to clinical trials.
The minute quantities permitted by the new guidelines probably wouldn’t uncover every potential glitch, but should reveal some basic molecular behaviour, such as whether or not cancer drugs would…
