animals Conference Report Improving Translation by Identifying Evidence for More Human-Relevant Preclinical Strategies Merel Ritskes-Hoitinga 1,* , Cathalijn Leenaars 2,3 , Wouter Beumer 4, Tineke Coenen-de Roo 5, Frans Stafleu 6 and Franck L. B. Meijboom 2,6 1 SYRCLE, Department for Health Evidence (section HTA), Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, Radboud University Medical Centre, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands 2 Unit Animals in Science and Society, Department of Population Health Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, 3508 TD Utrecht, The Netherlands;
[email protected] (C.L.);
[email protected] (F.L.B.M.) 3 Institute for Laboratory Animal Science, Hannover Medical School, 30625 Hannover, Germany 4 ProQR Therapeutics NV, 2333 CK Leiden, The Netherlands;
[email protected] 5 Central Animal Facility, Leiden University Medical Centre, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands;
[email protected] 6 Ethics Institute, Faculty of Humanities, Utrecht University, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands; F.R.Stafl
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +31-243-610-389 Received: 15 May 2020; Accepted: 8 July 2020; Published: 10 July 2020 Simple Summary: To develop new medical treatments, animal studies are used. However, there are questions and concerns about the usefulness of preclinical animal research. These so-called translational success rates vary between 0 and 100% and no clear relationship has been established with possible predictive factors such as animal species or field of research. This paper presents the main results of a conference that was organised in November 2019 as part of a research project that focuses on ways to improve predictability of translation from preclinical research to clinical studies.