US consortium set up to share drug test data and better understand safety

The US Food and Drug Administration and the Critical Path Institute (C-Path) have announced the formation of the Predictive Safety Testing Consortium between C-Path and five of America's largest pharmaceutical companies to share internally-developed laboratory methods to predict the safety of new treatments before they are tested in humans. The FDA, while not a member of the partnership, will assist it in an advisory capacity.

The move is described as an "unprecedented" sharing of potential early indicators of clinical safety which may streamline the cost and time of preclinical drug safety evaluation and better inform the use of personalized medicine." The Consortium has 76 initial research priorities that, if accomplished, will modernize the drug development process by 2010 and help get new medical discoveries to Americans faster and at a lower cost, says the FDA.

"Power of public-private partnership vital"