title: Investigative safety science as a competitive advantage for Pharma.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Following a US National Academy of Sciences report in 2007 entitled "Toxicity Testing of the 21st Century: a Vision and a Strategy," significant advances within translational drug safety sciences promise to revolutionize drug discovery and development. The purpose of this review is to outline why investigative safety science is a competitive advantage for the pharmaceutical industry.
  
  
  METHODS
  The article discusses the essential goals for modern investigative toxicologists including: cross-species target biology; molecular pathways of toxicity; and development of predictive tools, models and biomarkers that allow discovery researchers and clinicians to anticipate safety problems and plan ways to address them, earlier than ever before. Furthermore, the article emphasizes the importance of investigating unanticipated clinical safety signals through a combination of mechanistic preclinical studies and/or molecular characterization of clinical samples from affected organs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The traditional boundaries between pharma industry teams focusing on safety/efficacy and preclinical/clinical development are rapidly disappearing in favor of translational safety science-centric organizations with a vision of bringing more effective medicines forward safely and quickly. Comparative biology and mechanistic toxicology approaches facilitate: i) identifying translational safety biomarkers; ii) identifying new drug targets/indications; and iii) mitigating off-target toxicities. These value-adding safety science contributions will change traditional toxicologists from side-effect identifiers to drug development enablers.
authors: Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Discovery and Investigative Safety, Preclinical Safety, Basel, Switzerland. jonathan.moggs@novartis.com
authors: Jonathan
authors: J
authors: Moggs
authors: Pierre
authors: P
authors: Moulin
authors: Francois
authors: F
authors: Pognan
authors: Dominique
authors: D
authors: Brees
authors: Michele
authors: M
authors: Leonard
authors: Steve
authors: S
authors: Busch
authors: Andre
authors: A
authors: Cordier
authors: David J
authors: DJ
authors: Heard
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Kammüller
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Merz
authors: Page
authors: P
authors: Bouchard
authors: Salah-Dine
authors: SD
authors: Chibout
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019295:Computational Biology; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical / Q000379:methods*; D004345:Drug Industry; D064420:Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions; D006801:Humans; D023421:Models, Animal; D018675:Toxicity Tests; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical