ReviewKeynoteTowards a 21st-century roadmap for biomedical research and drug discovery: consensus report and recommendations

- Innovative 21st-century roadmaps need to be devised for biomedical research.
- Advanced human biology-based models and tools hold the key to progress.
- Human disease pathways mapped at multiple biological scales are an important concept.
- Funding should focus on acquiring critical human data instead of on animal models.

Decades of costly failures in translating drug candidates from preclinical disease models to human therapeutic use warrant reconsideration of the priority placed on animal models in biomedical research. Following an international workshop attended by experts from academia, government institutions, research funding bodies, and the corporate and non-governmental organisation (NGO) sectors, in this consensus report, we analyse, as case studies, five disease areas with major unmet needs for new treatments. In view of the scientifically driven transition towards a human pathways-based paradigm in toxicology, a similar paradigm shift appears to be justified in biomedical research. There is a pressing need for an approach that strategically implements advanced, human biology-based models and tools to understand disease pathways at multiple biological scales. We present recommendations to help achieve this.