Now dozens of research organizations in the United States and Europe use Xenogen's technology. Contag is enjoying the ride. He gets a kick out of the many and varied uses of bioluminescent markers. He's traced the spread of infection and cancer and watched them retreat, knocked back by antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs. Understandably, drug companies are excited.
Animal trials tend to create the biggest hold-up in the process of drug development.
Anxious pharmaceutical companies are forced to wait for months as scores of animals are poked and prodded. That bottleneck doesn't help their bottom line. Contag's team's twinkling mice promise a way of speeding up the process, not to mention making it more accurate, since researchers can see exactly what's happening in a live animal. It can cost drug companies hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a single, successful drug, but about 90 percent of clinical trials end in failure. Contag says any way of better evaluating a drug before it hits clinical trials is good news.