Comparing Animal Tests with Non-animal Alternatives:
Alternatives to Animal Testing
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Alternatives to Animal Testing

Comparing Animal Tests with Non-animal Alternatives
www.pcrm.org
January 2007

1. Animal Tests vs. Microdosing: time and cost from selection of pre-clinical drug candidate to finalized first-time-in-man study.
Animal Tests: 12-18 months, $1.5-$3.0 million
Microdosing: 5-8 months, $0.3-0.5 million

2. Mouse Cancer Model vs. Human Tumor Cell Line Screen: effectiveness of each method to predict phase II clinical trial results of efficacy of study drug to combat cancer.
Animal Test ([mouse] murine allograft model): not predictive
In vitro test: good clinical predictivity

3. Rat L50 Test vs. Human Cell Culture: in the Multicenter Evaluation of In Vitro Cytotoxicity tests (MEIC basal cytotoxicity battery), researchers evaluated 68 different methods to predict the toxicity of 50 different chemicals.
Animal test (lethal dose): 59 percent accurate
Human cell in vitro test (the MEIC Battery): 83 percent accurate in predicting actual human toxicity.

Cost Comparisons

4. Skin corrosivity:

a. Animal test = $1800 per assay

b. In vitro alternative 1 (EpiDerm) = $850 per assay
In vitro alternative 2 (Corrositex) = $725 per assay

5. Genotoxicity (if the chemical is toxic to DNA):

a. Animal test of chromosomal aberration = $30,000 per assay
In vitro alternative test = $20,000 per assay

b. Animal test of sister chromatid exchange = $22,000 per assay
In vitro alternative test = $8,000 per assay

c. Animal test of unscheduled DNA synthesis = $32,000 per assay
In vitro alternative test = $11,000 per assay

6. Pyrogenicity (if the substance causes fever):

a. Animal test = $400 per assay
In vitro alternative test (Endosafe-IPT) = $110 per assay