Focused on standardized, validated induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) assays, Ncardia’s phenotypic platform, DiscoverHIIT, gives researchers access to disease-relevant biology earlier in the drug discovery process with its four integrated modules.
Data from this type of platform allows for more success when moving into clinical research, a Ncardia spokesperson explained. “If you consider the common visualization of drug discovery of a big funnel where a lot of drugs go in at the top, only 5-10 go into clinical trials and just one goes to market, then you realize all of the decisions occur early at the top,” they said.
DiscoverHIIT’s four modules include iPSC products, disease models, assay systems, and high-throughput screening. The first of these four modules includes genetic and human-induced iPSC-derived cardiac and neural disease models.
“If you implement human cell models that are predictive for your patient outcome early in the drug discovery pipeline, you can make better decisions and win a lot in terms of efficiency,” the spokesperson explained.
The second module includes a controlled bioreactor-based manufacturing system to enable the use of relevant disease models.
The other two modules included within the platform generate and validate disease-relevant assays with clinically relevant readouts, and a high throughput screening platform using qualified disease assays in combination with high-content data acquisition and analysis.
Evotec entered a licensing agreement with Ncardia in 2017 to use its stem cell-derived cellular disease modeling, which is available in the company’s DiscoverHIIT platform.