The problems of animal research for human medicine and the alternatives

The Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics is an independent centre pioneering ethical perspectives on animals and putting them on the intellectual agenda. And when it comes to the pharmaceutical industry and drug development, such ethical concerns really come to the fore.

In today’s podcast, web editor Nicole Raleigh speaks with Dr Pandora Pound, a Fellow at the OCAE and research director at the Safer Medicines Trust, a charity aiming to improve the safety of medicines by facilitating a transition to human biology-based drug development and testing.

From a mere curiosity to a research deep dive for robust evidence that led to a published paper that sparked a series of systematic reviews exposing the scientific limitations of using animals in medical research - the conversation makes clear that a reliance on animal research is problematic, but what are the alternatives?

You can listen to episode 111a of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer, or find it - and subscribe to the rest of the series - in iTunes, Spotify, acast, Stitcher, and Podbean.