Absorption Systems announced the results of another study demonstrating the effectivness of the company’s CellPort Technologies to predict the potential for pharmacokinetic drug-drug interactions. The study, published online in Drug Metabolism and Disposition examined several statin drugs, which are widely used to lower cholesterol. Using Absorption Systems’ proprietary technology, company scientists, in collaboration with a colleague at the FDA, confirmed what had previously been suspected regarding which drug transporters are responsible for eliminating the drugs from the body. Such results can be important for predicting and understanding drug-drug interactions and toxicity.
CellPort Technologies is a suite of preclinical in vitro test systems designed to provide definitive data regarding interactions between new drugs under investigation and specific transport proteins that have been identified by the FDA as key mediators of drug safety. Absorption Systems scientists used a novel approach to create a panel of human cell lines in which the expression of one efflux transporter at a time is knocked down. It then becomes a simple process of elimination to determine, in a very unambiguous way, which efflux transporter(s) is/are sites of interaction.
“We were very excited to collaborate with the FDA on this research project, especially since the agency helped fund the development of these tools through Phase I and Phase II SBIR grants” said Patrick M. Dentinger, President and CEO of Absorption Systems. “This study demonstrates CellPort’s unique ability to predict or explain potentially harmful drug-drug interactions.”
The collaborative study with the FDA was another demonstration of the power of this approach to explain certain clinical drug-drug interactions. Going forward, drug developers are increasingly utilizing tools such as CellPort proactively to anticipate and avoid such interactions before they occur.
Source: Absorption Systems