Behavior
Conduct extensive pain, sensory, motor, and cognitive behavioral testing.
One of the challenges in the life sciences industry is improving the approval rate of neurology and pain treatments. While our understanding of neurology is growing, there are still several limitations. Compared to other therapeutic areas, there are fewer predictive models, fewer known biomarkers that help quantify disease, and a narrow scope of human data. Consequently, the development of neurological treatments heavily depends on qualitative and subjective measures, which is an inadequate predictor of disease and treatment. MD Biosciences is combatting this challenge by developing translational models and novel quantitative measures that help de-risk clinical trials.
Increasing the clinical translatability of preclinical data requires models that accurately reflect the human condition. The pig shares valuable similarities with humans, including skin and neurological characteristics. Additionally, studies in the pig are more relevant for topical treatments, closely mimic human drug dose volumes, allow evaluation of medical devices, exhibit nerve stimulation and behavioral changes that closely resemble humans, and have similarity in >93% of relevant biomarkers.
Pig sensory nerve function closely mirrors human sensory function, particularly in key pain biomarkers such as TRPV1, with comparable silent nociceptor activity and nerve ending density.
Pig skin closely resembles human skin in both structure and permeability. Pig skeletal muscle aligns with human muscle in contractile, metabolic, and morphological characteristics.
Pigs exhibit similarities to humans in their digestive, immune, nervous, and cardiovascular systems, making them predictive models for topical treatments, medical devices, and drug dosing studies.
As a leading preclinical CRO in neurodegeneration and pain research, we have developed several translational models in the pig. See our published work here.
Preclinical rodent models largely contribute to our understanding of chronic neuropathic pain, however these animal models are limiting due to poor clinical translation. Since pigs share similarities with humans, such as skin innervation and neurological resemblance, MD Biosciences Neuro developed a pig model for chronic pain caused by surgically-induced peripheral neuritis (PNT).
Nerve blocking agents are often used to replace general anesthesia in surgery, provide effective post-operative pain control, and reduce opioid-related side effects. The preclinical model of sciatic nerve block enables researchers to directly access and dose to the sciatic nerve and allows the screening of new nerve blocking agents or drugs designed to reverse local analgesia.
While rodent models are useful for the study of neuropathic pain, they do not accurately mimic the distal surface symptomatic neuroma. These models are also limited to rodents, which restricts research to pharmacology. The development of a large animal model for neuroma in the pig opens the opportunity for development of device technology and surgical-related concepts.
MD Biosciences offers various models of wound healing in both rodents and pigs. While rodent models provide data for earlier research stages, pig models are ideally suited for wound healing efficacy studies. Perhaps one of the most compelling arguments for use of pigs in wound healing studies is the similarity in the physiological processes through which pig and human heal.
Please contact us for more information about the ischemic reperfusion model in pigs.
MD Biosciences offers comprehensive in vivo measures and endpoint assessments, delivering robust data packages to support critical research decisions in the evolving landscape of drug development and biomedical research.
Conduct extensive pain, sensory, motor, and cognitive behavioral testing.
Explore inflammatory and pain biomarkers in disease-specific tissues.
Characterize tissue and cellular changes in disease, pain, and neurodegeneration.
Measure motor and sensory evoked potentials to assess disease progression and pain.