Hepatotoxicity deal

ROSTOCK, Germany—In vitro profiling specialist Bionas GmbH and Schwein, Germany-based PRIMACYT Cell Culture Technology GmbH announced a cooperative agreement that will see the companies develop a hepatocyte-based assay that will help pharmaceutical firms predict liver toxicity in test compounds. The deal should allow the companies to grab a significant chunk of the growing ADMET market that according to a report by Frost & Sullivan, is expected to reach $776 million by 2011 in Europe alone.

 

"Our study using primary human hepatocytes and Bionas 2500 analyzing system shows very promising results and could be ideally suited to predict hepatotoxic effects in vitro," says Dr. Ralf Ehret, Bionas general manager.

 

PRIMACYT will provide primary human hepatocyte cell lines and media to be used with Bionas' collagen-coated metabolic chips. The chips measure a variety of metabolic processes, allowing researchers to detect changes in real time in response to drug candidates.