We are concerned about the misleading claims made by Kathy Archibald and colleagues in their Correspondence (June 4,pl915). The main claim made is that more medicines are failing, that adverse drug reactions have increased, and that these problems are caused by inadequacies in the medicines development process. They blame an "over-reliance of the pharmaceutical industry on the use of animals to predict drug behaviour in man". It is essential for all doctors, patients, regulators, and the bioscience sector globally that new medicines are safe and effective. Sound and sophisticated science is used at all stages of research into health and disease, and in the development of new treatments. Animal research and testing is a small but vital part of this effort, and does not represent, in any sense, "over-reliance".
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