Drug Development and the Use of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes for Disease Modeling and Drug Toxicity Screening

Over the years, numerous groups have employed human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) as a superb human-compatible model for investigating the function and dysfunction of cardiomyocytes, drug screening and toxicity, disease modeling and for the development of novel drugs for heart diseases. In this review, we discuss the broad use of iPSC-CMs for drug development and disease modeling, in two related themes. In the first theme—drug development, adverse drug reactions, mechanisms of cardiotoxicity and the need for efficient drug screening protocols—we discuss the critical need to screen old and new drugs, the process of drug development, marketing and Adverse Drug reactions (ADRs), drug-induced cardiotoxicity, safety screening during drug development, drug development and patient-specific effect and different mechanisms of ADRs. In the second theme—using iPSC-CMs for disease modeling and developing novel drugs for heart diseases—we discuss the rationale for using iPSC-CMs and modeling acquired and inherited heart diseases with iPSC-CMs.