The FDA plans to eliminate animal tests in drugs in what it calls a “paradigm change”

In an unexpected decision, the United States Food and Drug Administration has announced this week to reduce – and possibly replace – animal tests by other methods of developing certain drugs in order to reduce R&D costs and, ultimately, prescription drug prices.

The agency will encourage researchers to use computer modeling and artificial intelligence to predict how a drug will behave, as well as organs on the chip, which are miniaturized devices which imitate organs and tissues. And to determine efficiency, the FDA will start to use existing and real security data from other countries where medication has already been studied in humans.

“For too long, drug manufacturers have carried out additional tests on drug animals that have data in broad human use internationally. This initiative marks a paradigm shift in the evaluation of drugs and is the promise of accelerating significant remedies and treatments for Americans while reducing the use of animals, “said FDA commissioner Martin Makary in a statement.