Simcyp has launched Simcyp Rat 2008, a 'virtual animal' for in-silico prediction of drug kinetics.
Rats have been traditionally used in pharmaceutical development to examine how a compound is absorbed, distributed, metabolised and excreted by the body.
Simcyp Rat can model these processes, providing crucial insights into how medicines will behave in real life.
Professor Amin Rostami-Hodjegan, director of research and development at Simcyp, said: 'We have a great understanding of rat physiology, which has allowed us to create algorithms and models that represent a virtual rat.
'Research scientists can now use their drug development data in simulations to predict how their medicine will behave in virtual animals.
'The system can even mimic real-life experimental scenarios including whether rats are fed at the time of dosing and the amount of fluid that is administered with an oral dose.' The Simcyp Rat simulator contains databases of commonly used drugs that allow the properties of new medicines to be compared with medicines that are already available.
The simulator is available to members of the Simcyp Consortium, which includes nine of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies worldwide.
