Collaboration to Standardize Chemistry-Based Metabolism Prediction, Profiling Technology to Improve Drug Discovery Process

Empiriko (Newton, MA, USA), a clinical intelligence company, and CreaGen Biosciences, Inc., a drug discovery service company and science research incubator, have reached an agreement under which CreaGen will provide chemistry expertise and modern laboratory facilities for scaling and standardizing Empiriko’s chemosynthetic liver technology (Biomimiks).

By utilizing CreaGen’s chemistry capabilities and laboratory facility, Empiriko is validating methodologies for its transformative Biomimiks technology. For the first time, pharmaceutical customers can use a chemistry-based system to rapidly and effectively predict and validate metabolism pathways, patterns, and profiles for small molecule therapeutics.

“We are thrilled to be working with CreaGen, especially given their extensive experience in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery,” said Mukund Chorghade, Empiriko’s chief scientific officer. “This partnership enables us to share brainpower, while tapping into CreaGen’s expansive facilities for parallel chemistry, spectroscopy, and chromatography.”

“We are excited to be partnering with the Empiriko team and to have this special opportunity to support their Biomimiks technology. We are confident that this chemistry-based technology has the potential for changing the way pharmaceutical companies predict, confirm and quantify the accurate formation of drug metabolites and their likely clinical impact,” said Raj Rajur, PhD, chairman and CEO of CreaGen Biosciences. “This partnership enables us to play a strategic role in taking this technology to the next level of commercialization.”

The pharmaceutical industry is faced with huge financial and competitive pressures to find and select potential drug candidates faster and cost-effectively. Metabolism profiling, which is done comparatively late in the drug discovery process, is a widely used way of detecting possible toxicity and drug-drug interactions, and choosing the best drug candidates for additional study. Because 90% of drug metabolites are implicated in adverse drug reactions, metabolic processes of drugs are the topic of great scrutiny in drug development. Current ways to evaluate drug metabolism are labor-intensive and expensive processes that involve animal testing and frequently generate findings that are chemically inconclusive.

“This strategic collaboration enables us to leverage CreaGen’s chemistry expertise and incubator space to quickly optimize and standardize our Biomimiks offerings, reduce R&D costs, and tap into CreaGen’s customer base,” concluded Pam Randhawa, CEO of Empiriko. “Metabolite prediction and profiling is a highly specialized process that requires innovative technology and exceptional skillsets, such as those demonstrated by our combined team.”

CreaGen Biosciences is a specialty drug discovery chemistry service company that provides high quality research support to biotech and pharmaceutical companies. The company’s discovery research service engine, integrated chemistry operating system (ICOS), helps to convert research ideas into innovative medicines, serving as a de facto medicinal chemistry facility for moving models to the clinic. CreaGen’s chemistry incubator division offers innovators a collaborative place to launch, incubate and grow their emerging life science companies.

Empiriko is a clinical intelligence company that utilizes chemistry-based experimental research and in-silico modeling to provide solutions in drug discovery, development, and patient outcomes by combining scientific research and clinical observations with leading-edge technologies and advanced analytics. Empiriko has designed in vitro and ex vivo biomimetic systems—Biomimiks—that function as “chemosynthetic livers” to generate and predict metabolic profiles of drugs, which identify new chemical entities (NCEs) and reduce drug attrition rates.

Empiriko’s Biomimiks technology provides the predictive foundation for emulating CYP enzymes, function, mechanism, and reactivity. With Biomimiks, pharmaceutical researchers can develop better and safer compounds by conducting early metabolism studies, generating quantitative measures of toxicity, and lowering the necessity of animal experimentation. For personalized patient treatment, clinicians can now analyze metabolic patterns to assess drug-to-drug interactions and the safety and efficacy associated with adding a new drug to a patient's drug regimen.

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