CeeTox and Cellular Dynamics International (CDI) have introduced a new predictive cardiac safety screening service, Cardiac Arrhythmia Assessment Screen (CAAS), which uses human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell-derived cardiomyocytes.
The screening service combines CeeTox in vitro toxicity screening and CDI's iCell Cardiomyocytes to provide a profile of drug-induced cardiac toxicity early in the drug development cycle.
CeeTox CAAS provides a fast assessment of drug-induced cardiac arrhythmias and biochemical cytotoxicity that enables researchers to monitor both acute and longer-term effects, in contrast to the single time point results obtained with other assays.
CeeTox chief scientific officer and founder James McKim said CeeTox CAAS is an addition to cardiac safety screening panels done during lead optimization, prior to candidate selection.
''More sensitive, predictable in vitro screens such as this that have direct implications for hazard identification and risk assessment can save drug developers valuable time and money," McKim added.
Cellular Dynamics chief commercial officer Chris Parker said increasingly researchers are publishing on the more predictive power of iCell products in safety testing and discovery and Cellular Dynamics is working closely with a number of pharma companies to develop assays that will become part of the standard screening platforms.
"We're gratified to work with CeeTox as the first CRO to incorporate human iPSC-derived tissue cells as a standard human in vitro model into their screening services, thus reducing the use of animals in testing and providing a more predictive model of in vivo human response," Parker added.
