NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Roche said today that it has partnered with Cellular Dyanmics and Acea Biosciences on technologies for the early and accurate prediction of cardiotoxic side effects in the drug discovery process.
The alliance will combine Cellular Dynamics' induced pluripotent stem cell-derived heart cells, called iCell Cardiomyocytes, with Roche's xCelligence RTCA System, a label-free cell analysis system which was co-developed by Acea.
The partners have already conducted evaluation experiments to measure the effects of cardiac compounds with known electrophysiological and/or biochemical actions on the cells in addition to drugs withdrawn from the market due to cardiac effects. They are now beta testing the platform at several pharmaceutical firms and academic institutions and expect it to be commercially available soon.
Further terms of the partnership were not disclosed.