Clinical Trials in a Dish: New key to a faster drug development process
A new article published in SLAS discovery reveals a new solution to hasten the drug development process called “Clinical Trials in a Dish” or CTiD.
The CTiD aims to compress the rigorous process of formulating new drugs as opposed to the traditional scientific processes.
Researchers at Coyne Scientific says that it takes at least 12 years to introduce a new drug in the market. “The process is disappointing not only for the government but also for the people who are desperately waiting for the possible treatment of their rare diseases.”
With CTiD, scientists can test new drugs on patient cells before moving into the actual clinical trials. Consequently, they can make predetermination whether to continue or discontinue further development with more data produced at a much shorter time frame. It also helps reduce the unnecessary cost spent by pharmaceutical companies on prolonged experimentations and formulation errors.
The concept of the CTiD is to identify the need for a multi-patient clinical trial while in the vitro setting and allow a wide range of drug testing for only 25 percent of the cost spent in the actual clinical testing
environment.Recent demonstrations of CTiD produces human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived (hiPSCs) cell types which reiterate the same drug responses of ordinary human beings. This opens the door to infinite possibilities of screening cell-based safety and toxicity in drugs while in the vitro setting.
The CTiD also allows scientists to predict the varying effects of a particular drug based on the cells collected from the representative sample of human patients. In result, pharmaceutical companies can select safer drugs to move into clinical development and reduce abrasion.
At present, the CTiD is still in the process of refining with the hope of revolutionizing the drug development for a better and coefficient drug availability and wider patient coverage at a shorter time frame.
