It’s sad that animals have to be sacrificed in order to try and test the safety and efficacy of drugs and biomedical devices but it seems that it’s the only option at the moment. Animal studies provide valuable information to research scientists as to whether a product can make it to clinical trials or not i.e. if an adverse effect is observed on an animal model after implantation of a device, it won’t be tested on humans.

I’ve read somewhere that there is a company that develops microchips that can mimic different organs in the body. They were initially intended to study the link between drugs and the effects they have on organs but apparently FDA thinks that they can also be used to determine the safety of products. This might potentially be an alternative and maybe even put an end to animal testing one day for good.