Clyde Biosciences Predicts Effect of Drugs on Heart Contractility with 93% Accuracy
Clyde Biosciences (Clyde) today announced that the major NC3Rs Crackit Inpulse study demonstrated the accuracy of its CellOPTIQ® technology in predicting the cardiac side-effect risk of drugs. Clyde’s platform provided the majority of data in this large study, a collaboration amongst Clyde’s laboratory, GSK, and Professor Chris Denning at Nottingham University. The study used a suite of assays, led by CellOPTIQ® to assess cardiac liabilities of drugs using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs). The study also successfully used Clyde’s ‘MUSCLEMOTION' algorithm developed by Clyde Co-Founder Dr. Francis Burton and embodied in an automated, open-source software tool. This algorithm was validated across a series of cardiac preparations by the Crackit Inpulse academic network.
Professor Godfrey Smith, Chief Scientific Office and co-Founder of Clyde said: “This important study further validates Clyde’s technology in understanding and predicting the cardiac actions of drugs and drug candidates. Only by simultaneously looking at various factors, including, critically, cell contraction can the side-effect risk of drugs be accurately predicted. Clyde’s core technology successfully achieves this.”
The study was a blinded, multi-centre evaluation of drug-induced changes in contractility using human induced pluripotent stem cellcardiomyocytes. It demonstrated that hiPSC-cardiomyocytes predict, with 93% accuracy, the effect of drugs on heart contractility, validating use in preclinical development & safety assessment. This study, similar to other significant research published by Clyde and its partners, further confirms that hiPSC-cardiomyocytes hold great promise as in vitro models of the electrophysiological effects of existing drugs and of new drug candidates.
Richard Henderson, CEO of Clyde said: “This major study reinforces Clyde’s market leadership in providing critically important tests of cardiac side effect risk in developing new drugs. Our ability to measure multiple aspects of cellular function provides a novel and superior assay, critical to safe and successful drug development”.
Clyde will shortly publish additional peer-reviewed research on the critical importance of its CellOPTIQ® technology to eliminating significant cardiotoxicity risks in early drug development.
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Notes for Editors
About Clyde Biosciences
Clyde’s unique optical cell function assay service - CellOPTIQ® - provides information to biotech and pharmaceutical companies looking to better understand how their early-stage drug compounds act on the heart. CellOPTIQ® technology represents a major leap forward in assessing cardiac toxicity, providing patch-clamp quality data in a medium throughput format. Using standard 96 well plates and modern voltage sensitive optical sensors, CellOPTIQ® answers research questions more swiftly and more thoroughly than any other system. Clyde’s suite of technologies also include ‘Musclemotion’ a validated, automated, open-source software tool adaptable for use with standard laboratory and clinical imaging equipment that enables quantitative analysis of normal cardiac contraction, disease phenotypes, and pharmacological responses. Clyde is currently working with many of the world’s leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies from its base in BioCity Scotland.
Contacts for Clyde
Mr. Richard Henderson,
CEO
+44 (0)7717 878188
Prof. Godfrey Smith
CSO
About the Crackit Inpulse Study:
The aim of this NC3RS Crackit Challenge was to generate a physiologically-relevant contractility platform with cells that are phenotypically ‘mature’, possess a robust contractile apparatus, move calcium between intracellular and extracellular spaces and metabolically generate substantive amounts of energy. The challenge was to develop a suite of assays to assess cardiac liabilities of drugs using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs).
About NC3RS:
The NC3Rs is the UK’s national organisation for the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) developed over 50 years ago providing a framework for performing more humane animal research. Since then they have been embedded in national and international legislation and regulations on the use of animals in scientific procedures, as well as in the policies of organisations that fund or conduct animal research. Its strategy is to advance the 3Rs by focusing on their scientific impacts and benefits. The NC3Rs supports scientists to replace, reduce and refine the use of animals in research in the UK and internationally.