CDI, Promega enter collaboration for toxicity testing in drug discovery process

Cellular Dynamics International (CDI) and Promega have entered into a research collaboration with the goal of bringing more relevant and highly predictive toxicity testing to the drug discovery process. Pharmaceutical discovery scientists will now be able to combine bioassays with human cardiomyocytes to improve prediction of unintentional, detrimental side effects that have previously remained undetected until late in the development process or after release of the drug to the general public.

Currently CDI has validated a panel of cell-based cytotoxicity assays from Promega that use CDI's human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell-derived iCell^TM Cardiomyocytes. Data presented at the recent Society of Toxicology and the Society of Biomolecular Sciences conferences by CDI demonstrate that Promega's multiplexed biomarker assays for cytotoxicity and cell viability can be used to identify known toxic agents with similar sensitivity as reported in the published literature.

CDI and its pharmaceutical collaborators have begun validating such assays in order to incorporate them into their routine discovery programs. Chris Parker, CDI's chief commercial officer, noted, "Pharmaceutical customers recognize the importance of using human models to perform their studies—but up until recently, human cell models that exhibited true human biology in vitro were difficult to come by. We have several pharmaceutical customers who've validated in vitro cardiotoxicity assays using iCell Cardiomyocytes, which have correlated well with previous data from cardiotoxicity studies in animal-based models." Ultimately, the union of these two technologies from Promega and CDI is expected to provide more biologically predictive data and drive the development of safer and more effective drugs.