DiscoveRx's Assay IDs Safety Risks Better Than Animal Testing

New research reveals that DiscoveRx’s BioMAP Systems can identify significant drug safety aspects more effectively than animal testing. BioMAP Systems is a novel set of primary human cell and co-culture assays that model disease and pathway biology, which enables scientists to glean the safety and efficacy of drugs and chemicals.

In the study, published this week in Nature Biotechnology, BioMAP Systems analyzed 776 environmental chemicals to determine their ability to interfere in critical human biological pathways. These chemicals analyzed include reference pharmaceuticals and failed drugs. Results show that the in vitro approach can determine potential toxicities and off-target drug impacts. It can also zero in on cellular mechanisms and biomarker endpoints behind certain types of adverse reactions in humans.

Ellen Berg, scientific director and general manager of DiscoveRx's BioSeek division and one of the authors of the publication, said, “Our results show such systems to be a highly useful and reproducible tool for predictive toxicology that can identify potential chemical targets, toxicological liabilities and molecular mechanisms that elucidate specific adverse outcome pathways for drugs and other chemicals… New chemicals falling into profile clusters with known activities suggest specific potential toxicities for more careful evaluation, greatly increasing the efficiency of toxicity testing by focusing resources for follow-up testing on the bioactivities of highest concern.”

Animal testing is traditionally used to test the safety of drugs, products, and environmental chemicals. However, the large number of chemicals that require toxicological assessment, together with disparity bewteen human and animal results, presents a need for better testing approaches.

“DiscoveRx's vision now is to further build the BioMAP database with additional compounds, types of data, and cellular models, thus broadening the utility of this approach for both predictive toxicology and drug discovery research. This includes annotated, collated public data of compound clinical effects combined with exposure and compound metabolism information on drugs and chemicals, as well as data on compounds at multiple testing concentrations,” Berg said.

The company is presently working to assemble a pharmaceutical industry consortium that will help develop an innovative industry resource that can guide drug makers about candidates’ potential risks and benefits before starting clinical studies.