MIT robot may accelerate trials for stroke medications
The development of drugs to treat acute stroke or aid in stroke recovery is a multibillion-dollar endeavor that only rarely pays off in the form of government-approved pharmaceuticals. Drug companies spend years testing safety and dosage in the clinic, only to find in Phase III clinical efficacy trials that target compounds have little to no benefit. The lengthy process is inefficient, costly, and discouraging, says Hermano Igo Krebs, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.“Most drug studies failed and some companies are getting discouraged,” Krebs says. “Many have recently abandoned the neuro area [because] they have spent so much money on developing drugs that don’t work. They end up focusing somewhere else.”Now a robot developed by Krebs and his colleagues may help speed up drug development, letting pharmaceutical companies know much earlier in the process whether a drug will ultimately work in stroke patients. To receive approval...