Schrodinger issues statement on FDA phasing out animal testing requirement

Schrodinger (SDGR) said it supports the FDA’s plan to reduce, refine or potentially replace current animal testing requirements with new approaches designed to improve drug safety and accelerate the evaluation process, while reducing animal experimentation. The FDA’s roadmap encourages a number of computational approaches to predict drug properties. Schrodinger’s widely used computational platform enables highly accurate in silico predictions of key molecular properties for small molecules and biologics and has broad application across all biological targets. “The role of computational methods is changing rapidly in the pharmaceutical industry, and it is exciting to see these methods recognized as a powerful solution for optimizing drug candidates for both efficacy and safety,” stated Ramy Farid, Ph.D, chief executive officer at Schrodinger. “We have been pioneering computational molecular discovery for nearly 35 years and continue to develop new solutions that integrate physics with AI/machine learning to accelerate drug discovery, reduce development risk and lower costs. Importantly, this includes advancing our predictive toxicology initiative. We believe our computational solutions will play a vital role in significantly reducing the use of animal models in preclinical development.”