Comprehensive ADMESeq Research Screening Panel launched

Oct 24 2011

RainDance Technologies, Inc., the Digital Biology™ Company, and Ambry Genetics, today announced the launch of a comprehensive targeted sequencing panel to screen genes involved with drug absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) research. The ADMESeq™ Research Screening Panel enables researchers to simultaneously interrogate 242 known pharmacogenetic genes using next-generation sequencing (NGS) systems.

“We are confident that our pharmaceutical, biotechnology and research customers will be eager to utilize this novel predictive toxicology tool to enhance their drug safety strategies and reduce the costs associated with performing ADME analysis across the many research projects and clinical trials that rely on these critical data.”

The new panel includes pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic genes, as well as VIP genes from the PharmGKB (Pharmacogenomics Knowledge Base) and biomarkers associated with the U.S. Federal Drug Administration's (FDA) top 25 approved drugs. The ADMESeq panel was announced this week at the 25th annual meeting of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) in Washington, D.C.

In recent years, the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries have been genotyping ADME genes earlier in the drug development pipeline to help reduce the significant costs associated with failed drug trials and hospitalizations due to adverse events. However, current genotyping tools interrogate only a small number of known biomarkers and lack the genomic coverage to detect important variants across a wide range of genes implicated with ADME.

"Scientists interested in analyzing ADME genes can now look far beyond what existing genotyping panels reveal and discover the novel chromosomal changes and rare variants associated with drug metabolism and molecular pharmacology," said Andy Watson, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at RainDance Technologies. "Through our collaboration with Ambry Genetics, we are providing customers with a solution that puts the most advanced ADME research tool within reach of the many organizations focused on understanding the phenotypic effects of mutations in these genes and reducing the significant costs associated with failed drug trials."

The new ADMESeq Research Screening Panel provides scientists with the capacity to perform sequence analysis of entire coding regions of 242 key drug metabolism-linked genes, including 44 membrane transporters, 42 VIP genes from the Pharmacogenomics Knowledge Base, and 86 FDA-identified pharmacogenomics biomarker genes.

"We are very pleased to be working closely with RainDance to deliver this innovative and first-of-its-kind ADME sequencing service," said Ardy Arianpour, Vice President of Business Development at Ambry Genetics. "We are confident that our pharmaceutical, biotechnology and research customers will be eager to utilize this novel predictive toxicology tool to enhance their drug safety strategies and reduce the costs associated with performing ADME analysis across the many research projects and clinical trials that rely on these critical data."

The new panel, provided as part of the Ambry ADME sequencing service, leverages RainDance's proprietary primer design methods and single molecule microdroplet-based PCR platform to allow high specificity, even amongst highly homologous genes. The panel runs on both the RainDance RDT 1000 and ThunderStorm™ Systems. The ThunderStorm System is a new, fully automated, high-throughput targeted sequencing solution that enables researchers to process more samples and generate high-quality data faster and easier than ever before.