New Range of Fast Cost-Effective Services for Drug Candidate Selection

CIT anounced a new range of fast and economical services to meet the growing needs of companies developing the drugs of tomorrow. The services, grouped under the name LeadScreen (TM), offer an extensive array of tests designed to give an early evaluation of safety of drugs thought to have development potential. Currently, around 20% of candidate drugs fail during standard regulatory non-clinical studies, too often due to late identification of toxicological effects. Using CIT’s LeadScreen (TM), the early detection of potential toxicity can significantly increase the chances of success when the candidate drug goes through the later stages of non-clinical development. The speed, competitive price and efficacy of LeadScreen (TM) offers the ability to reduce considerably the financial cost and time associated with standard drug development practices. The new LeadScreen (TM) services are fast. From the start of the study to delivery of the results takes only 14 days - a real competitive advantage over tests currently on the market.
As well as saving time, LeadScreen (TM) presents other advantages such as its requirement for only a small quantity of the compound - and attractive pricing.

LeadScreen (TM) offers services that are easy to customise, standalone and entirely optional. They comprise: LeadScreen (TM) Tox allows more precise selection of the future drug candidate. Using CIT’s expertise in toxicology, genomics and biomarker analysis, LeadScreen (TM) Tox offers a multi-criteria toxicology study that can be critical in deciding which pre-selected molecules should be pursued. In a four-day predictive study, LeadScreen (TM) Tox combines the clinic (daily clinical examinations), clinical biology, histopathology, toxico-genomics, biomarker identification, in vivo micronuclei and toxico-kinetics; LeadScreen (TM) Genotox allows the evaluation of the genotoxicity of candidates using BlueScreen (TM) tests, mini-Ames and mini-micronucleus; LeadScreen (TM) Safety allows the evaluation of pharmacological safety parameters, such as QT prolongation and other cardiovascular parameters in vivo; LeadScreen (TM) PK allows the definition of in vivo half-life and bioavailability; and devTox (TM) and cardioTox (TM): LeadScreen (TM) also includes tests offered by CIT’s Wisconsin-based partner, Stemina Biomarker Discovery. These use metabolomics and embryonic human stem cells to identify biomarkers for developmental (devTox (TM) and cardiac toxicity (cardioTox (TM).