Eurofins Scientific, a food, environment and pharmaceutical products testing company, has inked a contract for the exclusive right to offer GE Healthcare's Cytiva Cardiomyocytes for drug discovery and early development cardio toxicity screening services.
The agreement has enabled Eurofins Panlabs to deliver an offering for an early predictive measure of cardiac toxicity, while empowering it to operate with optimum cost and time saving way compared to present pricey and time-consuming animal testing models.
The company said that the initial range of cardiotoxicity screening services covered by the exclusive right will be extended during the term of the agreement.
Commenting on the agreement, Eurofins Panlabs senior director Dr Usha Warrior said, "This agreement gives us exclusivity in the CRO space to develop new assays for key indicators of cardiotoxicity using Cytiva cells for our clients."
The availability of more biologically relevant and predictive assays and cell models empowers companies to boost the success rate and decrease the expenses of the drug discovery and development process.
It was found that up to three quarters of toxicity problems remain undetected until preclinical or later stages and Cardiotoxicity and hepatotoxicity are common causes of drug safety liabilities and withdrawal of drugs during development.
Human cell-based models Cytiva Cardiomyocytes offers a biologically relevant alternative to current cell models and primary cells for predictive cardiotoxicity testing.
