OREANDA-NEWS. Eurofins Scientific (EUFI.PA), the world leader in food, environment and pharmaceutical products testing, has signed an agreement with GE Healthcare for the exclusive right to offer GE Healthcare’s Cytiva™ Cardiomyocytes for drug discovery and early development cardio toxicity screening services.

The agreement allows Eurofins Panlabs to provide a unique offering for an early predictive measure of cardiac toxicity and function in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner compared to current expensive and time-consuming animal testing models. The initial range of cardiotoxicity screening services covered by the exclusive right will be expanded during the term of the agreement.

In drug development, up to three quarters of toxicity problems remain undetected until preclinical or later stages. Cardiotoxicity and hepatotoxicity are common causes of drug safety liabilities and withdrawal of drugs during development. The availability of more biologically relevant and predictive assays and cell models is key to helping improve the success rate and reducing the cost of the drug discovery and development process.

GE Healthcare is pioneering the development of human cell-based models such as Cytiva Cardiomyocytes, which provide a biologically relevant alternative to current cell models and primary cells for predictive cardiotoxicity testing.

Comments from Dr. Usha Warrior, Senior Director, Eurofins Panlabs: “This agreement gives us exclusivity in the CRO space to develop new assays for key indicators of cardiotoxicity using Cytiva cells for our clients. It also demonstrates our commitment to continuously developing the portfolio of services we offer to help clients systematically reduce the risk in the drug discovery and development process.”

Eric Roman, General Manager of Research and Applied Markets, GE Healthcare Life Sciences, said: “The agreement with Eurofins Panlabs will help realize our vision of bringing the benefits of human cell-based assays and models to pharmaceutical and cell science research. Cardiotoxicity is a common cause of late-stage drug failure, so it’s vital that developers have access to the right tools to help reduce this high attrition rate and to help increase patient safety.”