General side effect II panel (Gen Sep II) from NovaScreen identifies potential risk factors of drug candidates; screening service features human-based assays targeting range of therapeutic areas
NovaScreen Biosciences, a Caliper Life Sciences company, announced its general side effect II panel (Gen Sep II), a specialised side effect screening service.
The new panel, an evolution from NovaScreen's original general side effect profile panel, incorporates a broader range of receptor subtype assays.
Many of these assays use human source material, which helps researchers and scientists gain a more clinically relevant understanding of drug side effect liabilities.
Gen Sep II addresses side effects across a broad range of therapeutic areas including immunology, cancer, inflammation, pain, gastrointestinal, metabolic, neurological and cardiovascular.
"The Gen Sep II panel continues the NovaScreen tradition of high-quality side effect profiling," said Peter Carlson, vice president of NovaScreen.
"In today's discovery environment, gearing drug development efforts towards more clinically relevant experimentation is critical.
"Employing human receptor assays that cover a broad therapeutic range is one way to accomplish this.
"The panel was designed to include assays that specifically address emerging drug approval requirements.
"As an example, NovaScreen includes the hERG channel assay, an indicator of cardiovascular toxicity, in the Gen Sep II panel.
"Cardiovascular side effects are currently a huge concern in the drug development business, and identifying these issues as early as possible helps pharmaceutical companies avoid costly late-stage drug failures".
NovaScreen also offers a side effect database (SED) that can be used in conjunction with Gen Sep II.
The SED enables customers to compare Gen Sep II results with a database of more than 2300 compounds including marketed, failed, withdrawn, and over-the-counter drugs that have been screened through 65 ligand-binding and enzyme assays.
The SED provides detailed chemical and biological activity pattern information to aid the identification and elimination of side effect and safety concerns.
