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Alternatives to Animal Testing: Future of Drug Discovery

Adrienne L. Watson, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, World Precision Instruments

There are many benefits to pursuing alternatives to animal testing, including ethical and scientific advantages. Ethically, these alternatives ensure a reduction in animal suffering, aligning with the societal push toward more humane research methods. Scientifically, these alternatives offer more accurate and reliable data. Additionally, alternatives to animal testing are often more cost-effective and efficient than traditional testing, reducing both the time and resources required for drug development. Overall, the shift toward these alternatives is a progressive step forward, reflecting our increasing capability to conduct research in a way that is both humane and scientifically robust.


On December 29, 2022, the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 was signed into law, which allows alternatives to animal testing for new drug development. This has opened the door for new pathways to drug discovery and development that involve Artificial Intelligence, cell culture-based assays, and organ-on-chip applications. It also moved the field closer to the three Rs of animal testing:

  • Reduce.
  • Refine.
  • Replace.

The ultimate goal of this act is to enable faster and safer drug development to make meaningful impacts on patient lives.

WPI is your partner in drug development and continues to support tools and instrumentation for animal and non-animal testing. WPI has a long history of supporting microdissection tools, surgical instruments, stereotaxis, and electrophysiological applications, and our products will continue to be offered for research and development efforts that rely on complex physiological systems. 

WPI is excited to announce that our current and future development pipeline is also focused on products that support non-animal testing, including human and non-human cell culture applications, 2D and 3D cellular models, and complex organ-on-chip models.

Our 2023 instrumentation such as EVOM™ Auto, which allows Transepithelial Electrical Resistance (TEER) testing in a 96-well plate in under 3.5 minutes and EVOM™ AutoLCI, which allows for live cell imaging on muti-well and trans-well platforms directly in an incubator, are ideal for drug discovery and screening, as they allow the biology and physiology of cells to be assesses rapidly and reproducibly. With these tools, WPI has bridged advanced biological applications to automation and high throughput screening, allowing end users to screen hundreds or thousands of drugs a day. 

As we look towards the future, WPI is excited to support the best and most meaningful research platforms tools that enable safe and effective therapeutic discoveries to cure the world’s most intractable diseases.