Goodbye to LD50?

Drug companies should stop using a classic toxicity test, lethal dose 50 (LD50), to inform clinical trials, according to authors in an upcoming journal of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology linkurl:report.;http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6WPT-4R8WK2M-1-1&_cdi=6999&_user=10&_orig=browse&_coverDate=12%2F05%2F2007&_sk=999999999&view=c&wchp=dGLbVlz-zSkWW&md5=db03ae20cfcfde5f302c238ad0633bbc&ie=/sdarticle.pdf Mouse data of a drug's LD50, the dose of a drug that kills 50% of the test population, is often required by regulatory agencies for drugs intended for humans use. However, many have questioned whether toxicity in mice and other animal models accurately predicts human outcomes (read our story about problems with animal models linkurl:here;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/53306/ ). A European group of 18 pharma, biotech and clinical contract companies surveyed their scientists to determine whether the LD50 test was necessary to the drug development process. Looking at data pooled from 74 compounds through the development process, the working group determined that companies usually use other tests to collect pre-clinical information. LD50 data was NOT used: * for selecting a starting dose in...