Bio Screening Industry News

San Francisco, CA - GTCbio Announces its 4th Annual Assay Development and Screening Conference taking place June 8-9, 2009. As compounds derived from high throughput screening increasingly find their way into clinical trials, drug screening has become widely accepted as a critical step in the drug discovery process. After more than a decade of rapid growth, tremendous progress has been made in assay technology, laboratory automation, and informatics. These technological developments have not only facilitated a drastic increase in throughput and efficiency in drug screening, but have also provided novel solutions in other areas of drug discovery and development. As screening has also become prominent in biological research, screening facilities have become increasingly popular in academic institutions.

As the pharmaceutical industry continues to face the challenges of developing more new chemical entities and reducing the cost of R&D, the demand for novel technologies and creative approaches for improving the efficiency of screening has intensified. Cell-based assays used in compound screening and high-content screening technologies have gained popularity in the industry. Years of intensive research have finally resulted in label-free technologies in the drug screening market place. These technologies provide new ways of interrogating cellular and molecular binding events and enable orthogonal screening approaches to drug targets.

The goal of the 4th annual Assay and Screening Technologies Conference is to provide a forum for academics and professionals in the drug discovery industry to stay abreast of exciting new developments in assay technologies while exchanging ideas and developing more efficient approaches to the drug discovery and development process.

For more information, visit http://gtcbio.com/conferenceDetails.aspx?id=123

Munich (D) and Leiden (NL), November 24, 2008 / b3c newswire /  – CRELUX and ZoBio announced today that they have successfully executed their first fragment based screening projects from a jointly established platform.

One of the first targets, which also will be made accessible to customers, was Pim1, a kinase that has been implicated in the progression of several haematological malignancies. In addition to the “off the shelf” data on Pim1, tailor made fragment based screening projects are available for customers upon request.

The joint technology platform combines ZoBio’s proprietary Target Immobilized NMR Screening (TINS) technology with CRELUX’s high performance kinase crystallography platform. In the first campaign Pim1 was screened by TINS using ZoBio’s fragment library, hits were assessed in an in vitro kinase assay and the top 50 hits have been soaked into protein crystals. 37 out of these 50 fragments showed defined binding modes. Together with this high hit rate the structural diversity within this group generated multiple points for optimization and clearly proved the power of this technology combination.

“We are delighted to have found a perfect partner for entering into high performance fragment based screening. The collaboration with ZoBio adds another crucial drug discovery technology to our service portfolio”, commented Dr. Michael Schäffer, CEO of CRELUX.

“This project demonstrates the power of the combination of TINS with top notch crystallography. I am absolutely convinced that together we can provide our customers with critical starting point to jump start their challenging or failed targets.” noted Dr. Gregg Siegal, CSO of ZoBio.

CRELUX has used its state-of-the-art structural biology platform to solve more than 270 crystal and co-crystal structures for pharma and biotech companies. This platform encompasses all steps – from target cloning and expression all the way to high-throughput protein crystallization and in-house x-ray crystallography.

ZoBio provides fragment discovery and characterization services to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries using its proprietary Target Immobilized NMR Screening (TINS) platform. TINS, with its unparalleled sensitivity and reliability, has been used to discovery highly diverse, efficient ligands for a variety of targets including kinases, protein-protein interactions, viral targets and membrane proteins.

Cell-based assays provide one of the most valuable tools in drug discovery.  They are routinely used in target validation, HTS campaigns, structure activity relationship analyses and ADMET studies. Many factors need to be considered in designing, developing and running relevant cell based assays to progress discovery programs.  Significant advances continue to be made in assay design and cell supply processes that incorporate biologically relevant cell types and novel detection technologies. This symposium is designed to capture successful techniques and practices that enable high quality cell-based assays using commonly employed cell types such as CHO, HEK and U-2 OS, as well as the expanding application of additional cell types. The symposium will be of great interest to cell culture scientists, assay developers, screeners, medicinal chemists, ADMET and therapeutic teams.

Session Overviews:

Session 1: Cells as Reagents - Fact or Fiction?
This session will cover various aspects of the most important material used in cell-based assays: the cells. The talks will address the topics such as: how to characterize cell lines to ensure their identity? What are the impacts to the cells after transfection? What are the issues during scale up process? This session will also highlight advances in cell culture automation and material tracking system for cell-based assays.

Session 2: Assay Development - Present Realities
Topics covered include the application of BacMam virus based gene delivery in assay development, the development of high-content cellular assays, dielectric spectroscopy technology and photoprotein aqueorin based GPCR assay platforms and considerations in screening for antibody based therapeutics.

Session 3: Cell-Based Screening - The How, Why & Where
This session will include topics on the implementation of cell-based assays and screens across the discovery process focusing on the challenges, solutions and issues to consider. Presentations include experiences with high throughput screening for lead identification, profiling with cellular panels, ADME applications, and the use of high content screening in both drug discovery and to probe complex cellular systems.

Session 4: Cell-Based Assays - Emerging Trends
The topics in this session will address emerging trends in supply of cells that attempts to bridge the gap between traditional target based in vitro assays and in vivo measurements. The presentations will highlight potential applications of cells to build model systems that can offer the combined benefits of traditional in vitro and ex vivo approaches. These emerging technologies and methodologies hold the promise of addressing a major gap in using target based approaches to discover new biological tools and drugs and will challenge the supply of cell reagents.

http://www.sbsonline.com/

The FINANCIAL — Sanofi-aventis announced on September 26 the launch of the dScreen Consortium, a research initiative conducted with RainDance Technologies, Inc., Lexington, Massachusetts, and Louis Pasteur University, Strasbourg, France, to develop the next generation of High-Throughput Screening (HTS) for drug discovery applications.

The consortium was founded with the assistance of the Alsace BioValleyTM Cluster, France, which helped secure financing and support for the program.
The dScreen Consortium assembles:
- the renowned drug screening expertise of sanofi-aventis
- the unique expertise in droplet-based microreactors of the Chemical Biology Laboratory at the Institute for Science and Supramolecular Engineering (ISIS) of Louis Pasteur University
- and RainDance Technologies’ unique capabilities to apply droplet-based microfluidic technologies to human health and disease research.
“We are delighted to enter this partnership with two highly innovative research groups in this rapidly advancing field,” said Martin Galvan Ph.D., Scientific Director at the sanofi-aventis research site in Strasbourg. “The expected gains in terms of productivity and knowledge should significantly accelerate our drug discovery programs”.
Based in the Alsace BioValley in Strasbourg, the consortium will utilize the pico-liter volumes and ultra-high speed capabilities of RainDance’s technology and systems to achieve breakthrough performance in high-throughput drug screening methodologies.
“This exciting project represents the first research collaboration undertaken by our new RainDance Technologies France SARL subsidiary,” said Chris McNary, President and Chief Executive Officer of RainDance Technologies. “The speed, simplicity, and minute volume of our droplets eliminate the need for unnecessarily complex automation solutions in high-throughput screening. Our technology will process 10 million droplets per hour on a single benchtop instrument, dramatically accelerating the drug discovery process while conserving precious screening compounds,” added McNary.

“This project is an excellent opportunity to develop the compartmentalisation of reactions in emulsion droplets for an entirely new field of application: HTS for drug discovery” said Andrew Griffiths, head of the Chemical Biology Laboratory at ISIS. ”University Louis Pasteur is proud to be part of this consortium which will open new scientific routes while generating top scientific lectures to our students” said Jean-Marc Jeltsch, Vice-President, Louis Pasteur University.
“The dScreen Consortium is a great illustration of the “Pôle de Compétitivité” policy in France: the development of breakthrough innovations in drug screening through collaborative R&D programs results in strengthening local actors such as the sanofi-aventis research site and in the creation of a subsidiary of an US company in Alsace. Furthermore, the establishment of a drug screening services platform based on the results of the program will reinforce the capabilities of our cluster” underlined Pascal Neuville, President of Alsace BioValley.

Services to accelerate programs from biological target to first-in-man use Idealp-Pharma is launching fully integrated drug discovery and preclinical development services combining medicinal chemistry, cheminformatics,
screening, early ADMET and preclinical development capabilities to speed up
partner’s and client’s small molecules programs from biological target to firstin-
man use.

According to Serge Petit, PhD, President and CEO, “Being a one-stop-shop company adds significant value because the lead optimisation process involves iterative cycles for incremental optimization. The main advantages of our one-stop-shop service are to have access to all the experimental data, to be able to refocus the synthesis program and then to make the best decision for the lead optimisation process in accordance with our customers’ specifications.”

“Idealp-Pharma manages its customers’ hit discovery and validation, hit-to-lead
progression and lead-to-candidate process. Our aim is to deliver chemically and
biologically validated hits, accelerating lead optimization and identying IND candidate for our customers”, said Serge Petit. Idealp-Pharma supports also its client’s drug discovery activities by providing modular and customized services such as medicinal chemistry and cheminformatics studies.

More information about integrated drug discovery services can be found at www.idealp-pharma.com
About Idealp-Pharma

Idealp-Pharma’s aim is to expand partner’s drug pipeline by accelerating drug
discovery process from the biological target to first-in-man use. Idealp-Pharma
provides a range of flexible services: including fully integrated drug discovery and preclinical development, medicinal chemistry and cheminformatics.

Idealp-Pharma’s purpose-built lab covers a total of 2000 square meters. Idealp-Pharma now employs 60 staff. More information about Idealp-Pharma can be found at www.idealp-pharma.com

Genedata and Axxam have signed a multi-year contract for the implementation of the Genedata Screener® data analysis and management platform into Axxam’s high throughput screening process.

Genedata, the leading provider of in silico solutions for the pharmaceutical and life science industries, and Axxam, a leading biotechnology research organization offering early-stage discovery research services for the life science industry, have signed a multi-year contract for the implementation of the Genedata Screener® data analysis and management platform into Axxam’s high throughput screening process.

With an increasing number of pharma and life science companies outsourcing entire stages of their research cycle, the contributions of contract research organizations (CROs) to drug development have never been more crucial. Faster development, earlier decisions on project failures, and higher approval success rates are becoming the norm. To continuously meet those high standards, Axxam relies on Genedata Screener. Screener’s high-quality, high-performance modular system rapidly and flexibly analyzes, integrates and manages all assay data and then combines it with chemical, pharmacological and in vivo information to support Axxam scientists in prioritizing compounds and identifying quality lead structures with the highest confidence. Screener`s open and scalable architecture integrates with existing infrastructures, which allows it to be tailored to specific discovery processes, maximizing value.

Dr. Stefan Lohmer, CEO of Axxam, said, ”Establishing flexible and efficient working practices to ensure client satisfaction is our top priority as a reputable service provider. Genedata’s consistently high performance and data quality along with their expertise and profound scientific knowledge enable us to meet that goal on a daily basis, with rigorous quality control covering every detail, as well as keeping to deadlines and budget terms. Thus, our focus extends beyond the actual license agreement with Genedata, towards a comprehensive, long-term partnership in high throughput screening.”

Dr. Othmar Pfannes, CEO of Genedata, stated, “We are proud to have met Axxam’s high selection standards. Genedata as leading research informatics provider and Axxam as ‘best-in-class’ contract research organization for life science discovery research are creating a powerful synergy here that lets us look with excitement to the future.“

Axxam is a science-driven biotechnology company, which offers early-stage discovery research services for the life science industry. The company applies its comprehensive from genes to leads activities to Discovery Services that we provide for customers and to internal Discovery Research. Activities include assay development, high-throughput screening (HTS) and compound profiling. A team of almost 70 qualified personnel is committed to advance the discovery projects of our partners. The scientific know-how of our team is built upon years of experience as part of the assay development group of the Bayer HealthCare, Research and Development organization prior to the late 2001 inauguration of Axxam as an independent private company. The growing list of our collaborations in the life science industry is recognition of our success in areas such as the pharmaceutical, agrichemical, fragrance, cosmetic, flavour, food and beverage branches. Axxam is a privately-owned company with offices and state-of-the-art laboratories located in the San Raffaele Biomedical Science Park, Milan.

Genedata specializes in discovery informatics for biotech, pharmaceuticals and the life sciences. The company offers expertise in research informatics combined with open and scalable computational solutions. Our product suites include Genedata Phylosopher® for integrating, structuring, and analyzing research data, Genedata Screener® for high throughput screening, high content screening analysis and hit-to-lead, and Genedata Expressionist® for omics data integration, processing and analysis. Founded in 1997 as a privately held spin-off from Novartis, Genedata is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, and has branches in Munich (Germany), Konstanz (Germany), Boston (USA), San Francisco (USA), and Tokyo (Japan). The company is also represented in Taiwan and Singapore.

From Focused Compound Libraries to optimised Hit-to-Lead - that’s the motto of IQPC’s 4th international conference on “Compound Libraries” (formerly “Focused Compound Libraries”). Nowadays the pharmaceutical industry is under enormous pressure, and the key for the industry to survive is faster and more efficient drug discovery. To improve their lead generation process and library, pharmaceutical companies need to choose the correct library design from the very beginning. Also, they need to integrate new compounds and collections into their library design to guarantee its continuous improvement. However, urgent questions still remain: How can you find the ideal library size to assure diversity while keeping focused? Can fragment based screening speed up the discovery process? How can you guarantee the best screening outcome analysis to ensure lead optimization?

After concentrating on focused compound libraries in the past years, this year presentations will cover the design and enhancement of different kinds of libraries as well as the possibilities of hit-to-lead optimization.

Maximize your knowledge of the latest advances in intelligent library design:

• Explore how to efficiently integrate new compounds and collections to improve the lead generation process
• Learn how to build up an effective collection of compounds in your company to guarantee physical quality and quantity of the compounds
• Hear about enhanced screening methods such as fragment-based screening to reduce complexity in the screens
• Successfully enlarge your compound collection by utilising novel structures and multi-component reactions in library design
• Enhance your Hit-to-Lead ratio through advances in library design, screening methods and structure based drug discovery approaches

Experts from international companies such as Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck, Grünenthal, Sanofi-Aventis and many more will report about first-hand experiences and best practices.

Full speaker line-up:

• Sanofi-Aventis Gruppe, Germany
• AstraZeneca Ltd., UK
• Merck Serono, Germany
• Basilea Pharmaceutica International AG, Switzerland
• Organon Laboratories Ltd., UK
• GenKyotex S.A., Switzerland
• Carlsberg Laboratory, Denmark
• Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max-Planck-Society, Germany
• AstraZeneca, R&D Mölndal, Sweden
• AnalytiCon Discovery GmbH, Germany
• Asinex Ltd., Russia
• TU Vienna, Austria
• BioFocus DPI Limited, UK
• Solvay Pharmaceuticals BV, Netherlands
• Grünenthal GmbH, Germany
• Novartis, Switzerland
• Bayer CropScience AG, Germany
• Pfizer Ltd., UK

http://www.iqpc.com/ShowEvent.aspx?id=113724

Present advances in screening and separation technologies reveal extracts bioactivity with great efficiency and accuracy. Recently reported method of Direct Screening of Natural Products Extracts Using Mass Spectrometry does not require any preparation or fractionation work. Several hundred crude extracts can be screened per one day. Direct bioaffinity screening mass spectrometry method followed by the use of ligand mass information for mass-directed purification makes screen of crude extracts and identification of active compounds precisely possible.

Vu, H., et. al. Direct Screening of Natural Product Extracts Using Mass Spectrometry. J. of Biomol. Screening. 2008, v. 13, 4, 265-275

Plants and plant extracts from Timtec

HAMBURG, Germany and OXFORD, England and OSLO, March 12, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Evotec AG announced today that Spermatech A/S has chosen them as a partner to identify small molecule therapeutics for their pharmaceutical discovery project.

Through the study of the physiology of sperm motility, more specifically of “rapid swimmers” that cause fertilisation, Spermatech have identified biological targets that could be exploited in the development of non-hormonal reversible male contraceptives. On this basis, Evotec and Spermatech have defined a strategy for a tailored drug discovery project. Evotec will apply its expertise and proprietary technologies in assay development, high throughput screening and NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) screening to identify inhibitors of the sperm specific target protein. The screening will be performed with Evotec’s screening library of 250,000 drug-like compounds. Compounds will be identified that reduce sperm motility and will be used in the development of non-hormonal reversible male contraceptives at Spermatech. In addition, compounds that promote target activity may be evaluated as supporters of male fertility.

Dr Mark Ashton, Executive Vice President Business Development Services at Evotec, said: “We are extremely pleased that Spermatech has selected Evotec for this interesting project. It will allow us to use our combined technologies in assay development, high-throughput screening and NMR screening to identify the most promising candidates in the therapeutic field. Evotec’s highly diverse compound library is a good starting point to identify such active molecules and the additional results from NMR investigations of the hits with the target protein will provide the medicinal chemists with useful information to support subsequent drug design.”

“We were impressed by Evotec’s highly specialized and integrated capabilities. The collaboration will provide us with access to state-of-the-art assay development and screening technology and expertise together with a high quality library of small molecules. We are confident that this will provide an excellent starting point and valuable information to progress the molecules into more advanced stages. We really appreciated that during the initial scientific discussions of the project Evotec clearly demonstrated a results-oriented spirit in support of our project.” commented Eirik Naess-Ulseth, Chief Executive Officer, Spermatech.

Forward looking statements

Information set forth in this report contains forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about the anticipated benefits of Evotec’s products and services, the payments that Evotec may receive under its collaboration agreement with Spermatech, the anticipated timing and results of Evotec’s clinical and pre-clinical programs, and other statements that are not historical facts. Evotec cautions readers that any forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and that actual results could differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information as a result of risks and uncertainties. These include risks and uncertainties relating to: Evotec’s ability to complete the merger because conditions to the closing of the merger may not be satisfied; the failure to successfully integrate the businesses of Evotec and Renovis; unexpected costs or liabilities resulting from the merger; the risk that synergies from the merger may not be fully realized or may take longer to realize than expected; disruption from the merger making it more difficult to maintain relationships with customers, employees or suppliers; competition and its effect on pricing, spending, third-party relationships and revenues; the need to develop new products and adapt to significant technological change; implementation of strategies for improving internal growth; development, use and protection of intellectual property; general worldwide economic conditions and related uncertainties; future legislative, regulatory, or tax changes as well as other economic, business and/or competitive factors; and the effect of exchange rate fluctuations on international operations.

The risks included above are not exhaustive. The Registration Statement on Form F-4 filed by Evotec with the Securities and Exchange Commission contains additional factors that could impact the combined company’s businesses and financial performance. The parties expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in the parties’ expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.

Federal scientists are collaborating on a new approach to testing the toxicity of chemicals ranging from pesticides to household cleaners. They plan to use new automated high-speed cell tests to get more reliable data faster and more cheaply, and with less reliance on animal testing.

The National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are partners in the plan. NIH director Elias Zerhouni says scientists will apply technology developed by the two agencies to identify chemicals that might be harmful to humans.

“You could, in a battery of tests, end up with very specific molecular signatures that will be predictive of human toxicology, in ways that you just can’t do in animal testing today,” he said.

Scientists now rely heavily on animal tests to generate chemical toxicity data. That process is expensive, time-consuming and not always the best predictor of effects on humans says Francis Collins, director of the NIH National Human Genome Research Institute.

“There are differences between species. We are not rats and we are not even other primates, and so that [the] desire here is to see if we could do better,” she said. “Ultimately what you are looking for is [whether] this compound does damage to cells.”

The high-speed automated screening looks at the effects of chemical compounds on single human cells rather than on an entire laboratory animal. Researchers expect the new toxicology testing method will expand the number of chemicals tested and reduce the time, money and use of animals. NIH director Elias Zerhouni says it will also generate data more relevant to humans.

“What is being proposed here is to move the 20th century paradigm of testing of one compound at a time in many animals to going to the 21st Century paradigm [that] tests 5,000 to 10,000 compounds against 20,000 conditions in cells that are very specific to human toxicology,” he said.

Since NIH started the National Toxicology Program 30 years ago, it has tested 2,500 chemicals. Using the new automated strategy could get the same job done in a single afternoon.

John Butcher, associate director of the National Toxicology Program, explains that to check the reliability of this approach, scientists will first do a comparative analysis of the 2,500 chemicals previously tested on animals.

“And we can compare the output from these cell-based assays, in terms of whether these chemicals cause cancer, reproductive and developmental effects, neurological effects, immunotoxic effects and various other kinds of toxicity,” he said.

Butcher says the anticipated shift away from animal testing could take many years. Writing in Science Magazine, he says the agencies expect broader participation from public and private partners in the scientific community as the cell-based testing methods are refined and accepted.