CN Bio expands liver toxicity testing with cross-species organ-on-a-chip models
Cambridge-based biotechnology company CN Bio has enhanced its industry-leading drug-induced liver injury (DILI) assay with new animal microphysiological system models, enabling comparative toxicity studies across human, rat, and dog liver models to improve preclinical drug safety predictions.
Bridging the translational gap in hepatotoxicity assessment
The expanded PhysioMimix® DILI assay addresses a critical challenge in drug development: the limited capacity of traditional human in vitro methods to accurately predict drug toxicity, compounded by discrepancies between these methods and in vivo animal studies. This gap often leads to unsafe drug candidates being wrongly progressed or potentially life-saving treatments being misclassified and abandoned.
Building upon CN Bio’s FDA-recognised
DILI assay, the new offering provides rapid comparative studies between commonly used animal and human models, enabling researchers to identify interspecies differences early in development and better inform in vivo study design.
Enhanced capabilities for comprehensive toxicity profiling
The enhanced assay system enables broad longitudinal and endpoint testing for DILI-specific biomarkers through single or repeatdosing studies over a 14-day experimental window. This extended timeframe provides researchers with a more comprehensive overview of underlying hepatotoxicity mechanisms and latent effects of drug candidates.
Available through CN Bio’s Contract Research Services, the platform harnesses the expertise of the company’s scientific team to deliver detailed data analysis and optimised outcomes beyond what is achievable using existing in vitro models.
Clinical significance and industry impact
“Understanding safety risks is critical to successful drug development, however, fundamental physiological and biological differences between species can lead to inaccuracies in predictions, often causing drug candidates to be wrongfully abandoned as toxic, or worse, mistakenly classified as safe,” said Dr Emily Richardson, Lead Scientist, Safety and Toxicology at CN Bio.
She added: “Having established our DILI assay as an industry leading option to garner more valuable insights across the development pipeline, we were in an ideal position to expand its capabilities and address this crucial gap in understanding hepatotoxicity using the most commonly used animal models.”
The expanded service aims to mitigate costly late-stage conflicting data whilst reducing unnecessary animal use by providing early hepatotoxicity warnings prior to in vivo studies.
For more information, visit: https://cn-bio.com
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