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Press Release
June 30, 2009 - BioSeek and EPA Expand ToxCast™ Contract
BioSeek, Inc., a pioneer in the application of predictive human biology to drug discovery, announced today that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will utilize BioSeek's BioMAP® Systems technology to profile the biological effects of compounds in a second phase of the agency’s ToxCast™ program. The new program expands upon a successful proof-of-concept phase begun in 2007, after which EPA and independent investigators compared the toxicity profiling data from a wide number of profiling technologies including BioMAP. BioSeek will now generate BioMAP data on an additional set of chemicals selected by EPA in order to assess the potential impact of these compounds on the environment and human health.
Under the new Phase II task order, BioSeek is eligible to receive $1.74 million over the next year, and remains eligible to participate in both further downstream phases of the ToxCast program and its eventual implementation. The specific value of any future orders will depend on the volume of testing required during the contract period. The results from the ToxCast program will aid the EPA in prioritizing chemicals with the greatest potential health threat for additional, more detailed testing in a cost-effective, efficient manner. The five-year effort, divided into three phases of evaluation, was initiated and is managed by the EPA’s National Center for Computational Toxicology (NCCT).
“BioSeek’s continued participation in Phase II of ToxCast is a clear signal from both EPA and independent investigators that BioMAP data is useful in the characterization of bioactive compounds, regardless of whether those activities are related to potential therapeutic efficacy or adverse toxicology. The ToxCast contract with EPA is highly complementary to our drug discovery partnerships with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and provides additional validation of BioMAP’s ability to detect toxicities, characterize the mechanisms of biologically active compounds and identify potential clinical applications of drug candidates early in the development process,” said Michael C. Venuti, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of BioSeek.
BioMAP Systems are primary cell-based models of human disease biology, designed to replicate the intricate cell and pathway interactions as they are observed in human pharmacology and toxicology. Depending on their mechanism of action, compounds induce specific patterns of changes in these systems (BioMAP profiles) that can be compared to a large number of reference profiles in the BioMAP Database. Assessment with BioMAP provides early insight into human pharmacological and toxicological properties of compounds, including on- and off-target effects, dose responses, and the discrimination of closely related compounds.
About BioSeek
BioSeek is improving the success rate of pharmaceutical research and development by integrating human biology from the earliest stages of drug discovery onward. The company’s BioMAP® Systems incorporate predictive primary human cell-based disease models that generate uniquely informative activity profiles of each potential drug, assisting in the selection and development of new drug candidates. BioSeek is leveraging BioMAP® Systems technology in collaborations to enhance the productivity of its pharmaceutical partners’ pipelines, and in the company’s internal discovery programs. For more information, go to www.bioseekinc.com.
About the US EPA ToxCast Program
The U.S. EPA ToxCast™ Program is developing approaches to predict chemical toxicity using data from high-throughput and high content in vitro assays. The goal of ToxCast is to develop and verify "toxicity signatures," which are algorithms using in vitro and in silico data to predict in vivo toxicities. Phase I of ToxCast™ has produced data from >300 chemicals, ~500 in vitro assays and ~100 in vivo endpoints, providing a powerful dataset for evaluating the applicability of various analytic approaches for predicting the potential for an adverse response. The initial results from Phase I of the ToxCast program were presented on May 14-15, 2009 at the First ToxCast Data Analysis Summit held in Research Triangle Park, NC. Phase II of the ToxCast program will expand on and verify the ability of this approach to predict potential human toxicity. In Phase III, ToxCastTM will expand the list to thousands of environmental chemicals, delivering an affordable, science-based system for decision-makers to prioritize chemicals for more detailed toxicological evaluations.
For more information, please visit http://www.epa.gov/ncct/toxcast/
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