India urged to adopt non-animal testing for R&D hub status: New report

• A new report advocates for India to adopt non-animal lab testing technologies to become a global R&D hub, streamlining drug development and reducing failures.
• The study, "Landscape Analysis on Alternatives to Animal Testing for Drug Development in India," proposes Non-Animal Methods (NAMs) like organ-on-chip systems and AI-based toxicity models.
• Current animal testing has only a 10% success rate in human trials, leading to significant financial losses and delayed treatments due to biological differences between species.
• NAMs offer substantial cost savings, potentially slashing biosimilar development costs by 75-90%, and accelerating timelines, especially for cancer biologics.
• The report recommends an industry-led consortium, a National NAMs Agency, Made-in-India supply chains, and workforce training to overcome gaps and align with global regulatory shifts like the U.S. FDA Modernization Act 2.0.