Michael Dorato, vice president of Discovery Services, Covance Laboratories, told Outsourcing-Pharma the collaborating companies will lend their imaging capabilities to the development of intravital microscopy imaging technology to tackle “important questions related to preclinical responses at subcellular resolution.”
Under the one-year agreement, the firms will offer services in quantitative in vivo molecular imaging, high resolution assays of the in vivo physiological effects of drugs, drug distribution and pharmacokinetics, mechanisms and kinetics of renal and hepatic drug clearance.
Using state-of-the-art multiphoton microscopy technology, novel surgical techniques to visualise specific tissues, and multiple flourophores, to show quantitative organ, cellular and subcellular distribution of potential therapeutic compounds, the firms will offer in vivo imaging at subcellular resolution.
Coupled with this, the imaging technologies will provide physiologic data; going some way towards highlighting a compound’s efficacy and safety before it progresses to clinical trials.
“The technology is applied in the early preclinical space where decisions to move forward or to terminate a compound occur at a time where the overall discovery and development costs are lower than in the clinical trial phase,” said Dorato.
“Providing an answer to critical questions of cellular action facilitates early insights into the prospects of a particular compound,” he went on to say, claiming that the new technology encourages cheaper and faster preclinical drug development.
3D imaging program
Additionally, the imaging analysis software includes a 3D image reconstruction program capable of collecting large sets of microscopy data near to real-time, adding to Covance Laboratories’ extensive translatable imaging technologies,” said Dorato.
Although intravital microscopy technology has been available for some time, and many pharmaceutical companies have already used data from the platform to answer drug discovery questions, Dorato believes “it is the sophistication of this equipment, the novel analytical techniques applied to the data, and the surgical procedures used that creates new and unique ways for clients to apply this capability.”
“Clients have found that the unique insights provided by in vivo multiphoton microscopy provide for more in-depth decision making data,” he added.