Human-Free Human Trials

A tiny replica body-on-a-chip will be a safer, more accurate testing ground for new drugs.

- Shannon Palus

EARLIER THIS YEAR, FRENCH COMPANY BIOTRIAL held a clinical trial to test a new anti-anxiety drug. It didn’t go well: Five of the eight participants became ill, and one died. Disasters like this are rare. But also rare are clinical trials that go well: Ninety percent of drugs tested on humans do not work. These failures are an expensive, but necessary, part of the estimated $2.6 billion it costs to bring a medicine to market.