Down to the bone

Between drug discovery and clinical trials lies the need for preclinical testing. Animal models of human diseases, animal toxicology and studies of compound behavior for regulatory applications are necessary but often underappreciated aspects of the development process. For particular disease areas, pharmaceutical companies traditionally have done preclinical studies in house but are under increasing pressure to allocate resources elsewhere. Meanwhile, most biotech companies do not have the resources to test compounds in multiple preclinical areas of potential interest.

Skeletech Inc. is addressing those problems as a full-service preclinical contract research organization (pCRO), initially in the area of bone biology...