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Newsweek
2 days ago
- Health
- Newsweek
The Bulletin June 21, 2025
The rundown: The issue of animal testing is something most Americans agree on: it needs to change and gradually be stopped. Since President Donald Trump began his second term, his administration has been making moves to transform and reduce animal testing in country. Find out what steps are being taken. Why it matters: In April, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that its animal testing requirement will be "reduced, refined, or potentially replaced" with a range of approaches, including artificial intelligence-based models, known as New Approach Methodologies or NAMs data. The Trump administration's efforts to tackle the issue of animal testing appear to be a step in the right direction, according to experts who spoke with Newsweek. Read more in-depth coverage: Over 300 Animals Removed From US Safari After Decade of Red Flags TL/DR: Millions of animals each year are killed in U.S. laboratories as part of medical training and chemical, food, drug and cosmetic testing. What happens now? A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official told Newsweek: "The agency is paving the way for faster, safer, and more cost-effective treatments for American patients.' Deeper reading How Animal Testing in US Could Be Transformed Under Trump
Newsweek
21-06-2025
- Health
- Newsweek
How Animal Testing in US Could Be Transformed Under Trump
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Millions of animals each year are killed in U.S. laboratories as part of medical training and chemical, food, drug and cosmetic testing, according to the non-profit animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). For many animals held captive for research, including a huge range of species from dogs, cats and hamsters to elephants, dolphins and many other species, pain is "not minimized," U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows. The issue of animal testing is something most Americans agree on: it needs to change and gradually be stopped. A Morning Consult poll conducted at the end of last year found that 80 percent of the 2,205 participants either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: "The US government should commit to a plan to phase out experiments on animals." Since President Donald Trump began his second term, his administration has been making moves to transform and reduce animal testing in country, although the question remains as to whether it will be enough to spare many more animals from pain and suffering this year. Animal Testing In US Could Be Transformed Animal Testing In US Could Be Transformed Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva What Is The Trump Administration Doing About It? There have been various steps taken in different federal agencies to tackle the issue of animal testing since Trump was sworn in on January 20. In April, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it was "taking a groundbreaking step to advance public health by replacing animal testing in the development of monoclonal antibody therapies and other drugs with more effective, human-relevant methods." The FDA said that its animal testing requirement will be "reduced, refined, or potentially replaced" with a range of approaches, including artificial intelligence-based models, known as New Approach Methodologies or NAMs data. A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official told Newsweek: "The agency is paving the way for faster, safer, and more cost-effective treatments for American patients. "As we restore the agency's commitment to gold-standard science and integrity, this shift will help accelerate cures, lower drug prices, and reaffirm U.S. leadership in ethical, modern science." The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it was "adopting a new initiative to expand innovative, human-based science while reducing animal use in research," in alignment with the FDA's initiative. The agency said that while "traditional animal models continue to be vital to advancing scientific knowledge," new and emerging technologies could act as alternative methods, either alone or in combination with animal models. The NIH Office of Extramural Research told Newsweek it was "committed to transparently assessing where animal use can be reduced or eliminated by transitioning to [new approach methodologies (NAMs)]." "Areas where research using animals is currently necessary represent high-priority opportunities for investment in NAMs," the agency added. It added that it will "further its efforts to coordinate agency-wide efforts to develop, validate, and scale the use of NAMs across the agency's biomedical research portfolio and facilitate interagency coordination and regulatory translation for public health protection." During Trump's first term, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a directive to "prioritize efforts to reduce animal testing and committed to reducing testing on mammals by 30 percent by 2025 and to eliminate it completely by 2035," an EPA spokesperson told Newsweek. Although, the spokesperson added: "the Biden Administration halted progress on these efforts by delaying compliance deadlines." As a member of the House, Lee Zeldin, the EPA's current administrator, co-sponsored various bills during Trump's first term regarding animal cruelty, covering issues such as phasing out animal-based testing for cosmetic products; ending taxpayer funding for painful experiments on dogs at the Department of Veteran Affairs; empowering federal law enforcement to prosecute animal abuse cases that cross state lines; and others, the spokesperson said. What The Experts Think Needs To Be Done The Trump administration's efforts to tackle the issue of animal testing appear to be a step in the right direction, according to experts who spoke with Newsweek. "I was pleasantly surprised and quite frankly a bit shocked to read the simultaneous announcements by the NIH and the FDA regarding a new emphasis on the use of alternatives to animals," Jeffrey Morgan, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Brown University in Rhode Island, told Newsweek. Morgan, who is also the director of the Center for Alternatives to Animals in Testing at Brown University, said that both agencies are moving together in the same direction on the issue "sends a unified and very powerful message to the research and biotech communities." He added that the announcements showed "a major acknowledgement of the limitations of the use of animals in research and testing." "What is especially exciting is that the NIH announcement will encourage the entry of new investigators into the field, further accelerating innovation in alternatives with exciting impacts for both discovery and applied research across all diseases," he said. He added that the FDA announcement and its emphasis on a new regulatory science that embraces data from alternatives was "equally exciting." "The demands of this new regulatory science will likewise accelerate innovation because it will establish the much-needed regulatory framework for the rigorous evaluation of data from alternatives," he said. While the administration's initiatives to shift research away from animal testing is heading in the right direction, its policies are "overdue," Dr. Thomas Hartung, a professor in the department of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Maryland, told Newsweek. "The animal tests for safety were introduced more than 50 years ago. There is no other area of science where we do not adapt to scientific progress," he said. Hartung added that animal "testing takes too long and is too expensive to really provide the safety consumers want." He said that running animal tests for new chemicals can cost millions and take years in some cases. "Nobody can wait that long, even if they can afford the testing costs," he said. Hartung also believes the shifts in the industry to reduce animal testing have been "coming for a while," as over the last two decades, America's opposition to animal use in medical research has been increasing. "The alignment of FDA and NIH really makes the difference now, which I think is evidence of a strong relationship of their leaderships," he said. Yet in order to make a real difference, Hartung said clear deadlines are key to show that "this is not just lip service." He also said that he thought "the transformative nature of artificial intelligence in this field is not fully acknowledged." "We also need an objective framework for change to better science, such as the evidence-based toxicology approach," he said.
Associated Press
12-06-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Infinimmune Launches GLIMPSE-1 AI Model Trained Exclusively on Human Antibody Sequences for Advanced Therapeutic Engineering
ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 12, 2025-- Infinimmune, a biotechnology company pioneering human-first antibody discovery and design, today announced the launch of GLIMPSE-1, a protein language model trained solely on native human antibody sequences. Developed using millions of paired heavy and light chains from human memory B cells, GLIMPSE-1 represents a new paradigm for therapeutic antibody engineering that applies the design principles of the human adaptive immune system. Infinimmune published results in a new bioRxiv preprint, demonstrating that GLIMPSE-1 can humanize clinical antibodies, engineer for affinity and developability parameters, and generate highly divergent functional variants, all through in silico design guided by the biology of the human adaptive immune system. 'Fully human antibodies carry the evolutionary fingerprints of the human immune system, optimized over millions of years,' said Wyatt McDonnell, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO, Infinimmune. 'With GLIMPSE-1, we can decode and encode that logic directly from immune repertoires to discover and design better, safer biologics from day one. This approach complements the FDA's recent focus on assessing human-relevant methods for therapeutic development, which could ultimately benefit patients through more comprehensive safety assessment. We believe models like GLIMPSE-1 will remain essential in the discovery and development of modern antibody medicines.' GLIMPSE-1 was developed as a core component of Infinimmune's therapeutic development capabilities, strengthening the company's pipeline of antibody drug candidates. The model was trained using a large, diverse dataset with proprietary sequences from Infinimmune's Complete Human® and Anthrobody® technologies, which source antibodies directly from native human repertoires, allowing it to learn the biological and functional constraints of human immunity. Key results from the preprint include: GLIMPSE-1 operates entirely in human antibody sequence space, predicting viable antibody variants without 3D structure modeling, energy calculations, or experimental screening beforehand. The resulting antibodies maintain essential functional properties and characteristics consistent with clinically approved monoclonal antibodies, all guided by patterns learned from human immune systems. The development of GLIMPSE-1 aligns with recent FDA initiatives exploring human-relevant methodologies for therapeutic development. The FDA's roadmap for integrating New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) identifies monoclonal antibodies as an initial focus area, creating an environment where human-first models like GLIMPSE-1 may provide valuable complementary insights. Infinimmune has successfully integrated GLIMPSE-1 into its therapeutic antibody development pipeline, where the model has significantly contributed to the engineering and optimization of the company's lead programs. The company is currently exploring strategic partnerships with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to apply GLIMPSE-1's capabilities to partner's therapeutic programs. About Infinimmune Infinimmune is a biotechnology company pioneering a novel approach to antibody drug discovery and development. Founded by a world-class, multidisciplinary team of scientists and technologists, Infinimmune is reinventing antibody discovery with an end-to-end platform to deliver antibody drugs derived directly from the human immune system. These truly human antibodies are designed to drug new and existing targets with improved safety and efficacy. Infinimmune is building its own pipeline of drug candidates and partnering with pharmaceutical companies to advance their antibody programs, fill their pipelines, and reach new patients and new indications. To learn more, visit and follow us on LinkedIn and @infinimmune. View source version on CONTACT: Media Kimberly Ha KKH Advisors 917-291-5744 [email protected] KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA CALIFORNIA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY GENETICS SOFTWARE BIOTECHNOLOGY PHARMACEUTICAL HEALTH SCIENCE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OTHER SCIENCE SOURCE: Infinimmune Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 06/12/2025 08:07 AM/DISC: 06/12/2025 08:05 AM
Associated Press
17-04-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Efferent Labs Applauds FDA's Shift Away from Animal Testing
Efferent Labs' CytoComm® platform is positioned as a critical enabler of new drug evaluation standards following the FDA's shift from animal testing. 'Our CytoComm® platform provides the dynamic cell-based insight and continuous real-time wireless feedback that traditional animal models simply cannot deliver.'— Bill Rader, CEO Efferent Labs MOUNT PLEASANT, SC, UNITED STATES, April 17, 2025 / / -- Efferent Labs, Inc., a preclinical-stage biodevice company specializing in in vivo cellular data collection, celebrates the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's ( FDA ) groundbreaking move toward reducing reliance on mandatory animal testing for monoclonal antibody therapies and other drug classes. The long-awaited regulatory transformation serves to streamline development and improve patient outcomes and safety, while ultimately lowering costs. The FDA's plan outlines a strategic shift toward New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) and positions Efferent Labs' revolutionary CytoComm® biosensor platform to support the transition with a human-relevant, wireless, real-time alternative that aligns directly with the FDA's roadmap. 'This is the moment we've been building toward,' said Bill Rader, CEO of Efferent Labs. 'Our CytoComm® platform provides the dynamic cell-based insight and continuous real-time wireless feedback that traditional animal models simply cannot deliver. With today's FDA announcement, Efferent Labs moves from visionary to essential.' The FDA's pivot to AI-based toxicity and efficacy modeling relies on one critical factor: biologically meaningful, statistically reliable and clinically relevant inputs. However, many preclinical systems fall short of this standard. The CytoComm® platform addresses these limitations by capturing continuous molecular activity from engineered cell lines in vivo. This enables clean, longitudinal data that supports earlier decision-making, reduces animal use, and improves predictive accuracy—all while laying the foundation for AI modeling that regulators can trust. CytoComm® directly addresses the FDA's key aims under its new framework: Reduces animal use by replacing live models with embedded, human-relevant cellular sensors Accelerates development timelines via continuous real-time monitoring Improves predictive accuracy by capturing complex pharmacodynamic data Seamlessly integrates with AI workflows, supported by HookeCA™—Efferent's cloud-based analytics interface, which enables real-time data visualization and regulatory-aligned formatting As the first implantable cellular biosensor of its kind, CytoComm® provides continuous, high-fidelity molecular data without relying on terminal endpoints or high-stress procedures. This enables researchers to capture detailed pharmacodynamic responses using smaller cohorts, fewer animals, and statistically robust outputs. 'We are proud to be part of the solution,' said Rader. 'The science is ready. The technology is here. And with this regulatory shift, the path is now clear. CytoComm® isn't just the future—it's the answer.' For more information or partnership inquiries, visit About Efferent Labs Efferent Labs is pioneering the future of preclinical drug testing with its real-time cellular biosensor platform, CytoComm® Designed to replace static animal-based endpoints, CytoComm® delivers dynamic, high-fidelity cell-based insights—saving time, reducing costs, and elevating both human safety and ethical standards. Kerry Welch TRIO +1 8084290548 email us here Visit us on social media: Facebook LinkedIn Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content 'as is' without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (RXRX) Surged On Friday?
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RXRX) stands against other Friday's top performing stocks. The stock market finished the trading week on a positive note, wiping out earlier losses on Friday, as investors weighed the escalating trade tensions between the US and China. Having been battered this week, Wall Street's major indices all finished in the green, led by the Nasdaq, up 2.06 percent, followed by the S&P 500 with 1.81 percent, and the Dow Jones with 1.56 percent. Ten companies, predominantly under the mining and biopharmaceutical sectors, mimicked gains on the back of fresh industry catalysts that boosted buying appetite. In this article, let us explore Friday's top performers and the reasons behind their gains. To come up with the list, we considered only the stocks with a $2 billion market capitalization and $5 million trading volume. A pharmacist in a hospital pharmacy stands next to a row of various drug containers. Recursion Pharmaceuticals soared by 27.72 percent on Friday to finish at $5.76 apiece as investors gobbled up shares in the company following the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) decision to replace the use of animals in testing drugs with Artificial Intelligence. RXRX is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that uses AI in its discovery and development processes. It was also one of the companies that received the backing of technology giant Nvidia Corp. According to the FDA, the initiative was designed to replace animal testing with 'more effective human-relevant methods' in the development of monoclonal antibody therapies and other drugs. The move was not only expected to improve drug safety and expedite the evaluation process, but it could also result in lower research and development costs, thereby reducing drug prices for the end consumers. According to the FDA, it will begin to encourage the inclusion of New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) data in investigational new drug applications. Overall, RXRX ranks 1st on our list of Friday's top performing stocks. While we acknowledge the potential of RXRX as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as RXRX but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
