On July 5th, the Annual Progress Meeting 2025 of the project "Development and Application of Animal Models for Human Major Diseases in Drug Evaluation" – a project under the "14th Five-Year Plan" National Key R&D Program and led by the Institute of Laboratory Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences – was held at the Ningbo Academician Center. This project belongs to the key special project of "Basic Scientific Research Conditions and R&D of Major Scientific Instruments and Equipment" under the National Key R&D Program. Invited experts for the project, Researcher He Zhengming from the National Institutes for Food and Drug Control and Jin Xiaofeng, Academic Deputy Director of the Medical Department, attended the meeting and delivered speeches. The meeting was chaired by Researcher Bao Linlin, Deputy Director of the Institute of Laboratory Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Chief Expert of the National Key R&D Program Project. The attendees also included project tracking experts – Researcher Xia Changyou from the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Researcher Shi Peng from the Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences; project peer experts – Researcher Tian Yong from the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Researcher Xie Tian (Member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences) and Professor Bian Yuhong from Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine; as well as over 30 people including project task leaders, participants and scientific and technological management personnel.

During the meeting, the person in charge of each task of the project reported on the research tasks from the aspects of research content, research progress, representative achievements, problems in project progress and their solutions, next research plan, and fund use. Bao Linlin systematically sorted out the key nodes of each task, put forward issues such as the importance of verifying the correlation between animal models and clinical disease conditions, and clarified that the focus of the next work will shift to the drug evaluation research based on animal models.

The project consulting experts affirmed the work progress of the project (and its sub-projects). At the same time, they suggested that in the future research process, it is necessary to sort out and refine the characteristics and highlights of each sub-project task and strengthen the integration with clinical practice; when formulating model standards, the scope of application should be marked, and the drug evaluation work for the models should be accelerated.

This project aims to closely meet the needs of the prevention and control of major diseases in China, innovate animal models for drug evaluation, and provide strong support for drug research and development. By developing animal models with high simulation and reliability, it will improve the efficiency and success rate of drug research and development, and inject new vitality into the development of China's pharmaceutical industry.