Here are five things to know:
1. The FDA stopped a pharmaceutical clinical trial this year due to patient deaths. Researchers had tested the cancer drug on mice and dogs, before starting human clinical trials.
2. Adverse drug reactions rank as the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, according to a 2014 FDA presentation.
3. Some experts are calling for reformed preclinical test requirements to enhance patient safety.
4. Human-relevant technologies that better predict how drugs will react in the human body already exist.
5. Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, for example, has mini-brains composed of human brain cells, which are designed to help with preclinical drug testing for Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
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