Published on September 18, 2012 at 6:05 AM
ChanTest, the leading CRO expert in ion channels and nonclinical cardiac safety testing, announces funding of a Phase II SBIR grant. ChanTest will use the grant from the National Heart Lung & Blood Institute to optimize drug safety and discovery assays using stem cell-derived human cardiomyocytes.
"This grant will allow us to optimize our industry-leading cardiomyocyte assays," said ChanTest's Principal Investigator Andrew Bruening-Wright, Ph.D. "With our collaborators at FDA, DSEC, and Leadscope, Inc., we have improved predictivity models based on currently available ChanTest services. Our nonclinical models will only get better as we fully integrate cardiomyocyte-based assays."
These cardiomyocyte assays are critical for improving the predictivity of nonclinical testing and reducing the use of animals as proposed in the NIH roadmap for drug discovery and the FDA's critical path initiative. The grant will also fund development of automated instrument-based services to increase throughput and drive down costs to meet the needs of ChanTest customers.
Dr. Arthur "Buzz" Brown, founder and CEO of ChanTest and co-PI on the grant, added "ChanTest has assembled an expert team to ensure success of this grant. We'll build on this success to improve drug discovery for other diseases in which ion channels play a critical role."
Source: ChanTest