Cellumen and Mitsubishi Tanabe partner in discovery toxicology

Cellumen is focused on decreasing the drug attrition rate due to toxicity. The company’s CellCiphr CSB toxicity profiling services can identify toxic compounds in late primary screening through early preclinical phases, before entering expensive preclinical testing where the pharmaceutical industry is said to be losing millions of dollars from drugs that do not meet the FDA’s safety requirements.

By integrating optimal cells, panels of functional biomarkers and classifier software, CellCiphr is able to create a safety risk index for compounds, and help researchers predict potential rodent or human toxicity earlier than ever before.

Lansing Taylor, CEO of Cellumen, said: “By working together to develop biomarker panels, we hope to identify toxic liabilities much earlier in the drug development process than currently exists in the marketplace. Our ultimate goal is to enable Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma to prioritize its lead drug series.”