Rabbits Are A Suitable Animal Model For The Pre-Clinical Development Of Growth Hormone Agonists And Antagonists

Development of new growth hormone (GH) agonists and antagonists requires animal models for pre-clinical testing. Ideally, in such models effects of treatment can be monitored using the same pharmacodynamic (PD) markers later used in clinical practice. For GH, IGF-I is the most important PD marker. However, in intact rodents IGF-I shows no response to recombinant human GH (rhGH) administration, and there is little evidence for effects of GH antagonists except when administered at very high dose or expressed in transgenic mice. We therefore explored whether intact rabbits could be a better laboratory animal model to test GH agonists and antagonists by monitoring IGF-I.