HemoShear, LLC, a leading developer of human-relevant systems for drug development and discovery, today announced an important milestone in the development of systems that predict safety of new drugs and chemicals. Published in the American Journal of Physiology – Cell Physiology, the manuscript entitled "Hemodynamic flow improves rat hepatocyte morphology, function and metabolic activity in vitro" reports HemoShear's success in applying the core principles of its technology to replicate liver biology on the laboratory bench. Development of non-human species systems is an important step towards systems that use human cells to predict drug and chemical effects in humans.
HemoShear's work is valuable to the pharmaceutical industry because drug-induced liver injury, which is often not detected in pre-clinical animal and cell-culture studies, remains the most frequent cause of drug-induced toxicity and toxicity-related failures in clinical trials. By accurately replicating organ and disease biology in the laboratory, HemoShear's human-relevant systems will reduce the risk of costly failures in clinical trials and accelerate development of safe and effective drugs in humans.
Ajit Dash, M.D., Ph.D., HemoShear's Senior Director of Liver Systems, explains the significance of HemoShear's achievement. "In contrast to traditional methods that do not provide critical physiological cues to restore human cell biology, HemoShear's principles of combining primary cells and fluid circulation patterns restore the most important biological functions of hepatocytes, which are necessary for prediction of drug metabolism and safety," said Dr. Dash.
"Our work on the rat system has enabled significant progress in developing a human liver surrogate system, which is currently being validated with known drugs. HemoShear has already validated a physiologically accurate vascular system and vascular disease conditions. By gaining access to our liver and vascular systems and diseases, our pharmaceutical partners can save millions of dollars by avoiding drugs that are doomed to fail, while redirecting precious resources to drug candidates that are more likely to succeed in humans," said Brian Wamhoff, Ph.D., HemoShear's co-founder and Vice President of R&D.
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