Animal Model Selection

Animal Model Selection designates the systematic scientific process of choosing appropriate preclinical species and disease models for evaluating drug pharmacology, safety, and mechanism of action, requiring consideration of target pharmacology, molecular homology, disease relevance, regulatory requirements, and translational predictive value.

The pharmaceutical industry invests significantly in model selection and validation recognising that inappropriate animal models contribute substantially to clinical attrition through poor translational prediction. Target sequence homology between animal and human determines pharmacological relevance, with many biological therapeutics requiring non-human primate species for mechanistic studies. Transgenic models incorporating human targets or disease genes improve relevance for some drug classes. Patient-derived xenograft models maintain tumour heterogeneity better predicting clinical responses than cell line models. Patient-derived organoids increasingly challenge animal models for certain mechanistic applications. Regulatory requirements mandate toxicology in pharmacologically relevant species. As in vitro human tissue models advance and computational approaches improve, animal model selection continues balancing scientific validity, regulatory acceptability, and animal welfare considerations.