NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Caliper Life Sciences said today that it has received a $1.1 million task order from the US Environmental Protection Agency’s ToxCast screening program.
The task order falls under a contract signed between Caliper and the EPA in April 2007, under which Caliper could potentially receive $69 million of screening services through the five-year period of the contract. Including the $1.1 million order announced today, to date Caliper has received $3.6 million in orders from the EPA.
Hopkinton, Mass.-based Caliper said that it expects to complete work associated with the order, which includes predicting how chemicals like pesticides will interact with the environment, humans, and animals, during the current quarter. During this phase of the contract, Caliper will further screen 320 compounds that it previously had tested in an initial phase of research using 230 in vitro assays.
“With this new funding, we will expand our testing to determine the potency, or concentration response, of these bioactivities using all 230 of the initial assays,” said David Manyak, Caliper’s executive vice president of discovery services, in a statement.
The firm recently reported a decline in second-quarter revenues due to a $3.5 million drop year over year in licensing and contract revenues and contract delays for its Caliper Discovery Alliances and Services business. Company officials said the problems were associated with two contracts, one with the EPA and one with drug giant Pfizer.
However, Caliper President and CEO Kevin Hrusovsky said during a conference call following the Q2 results that the contract with the EPA “overall is going very well and is expected to deliver strong growth in the second half and future years.”