ChanTest Receives Expansion Capital from Ampersand Ventures

ChanTest (Cleveland, OH, USA), a provider of specialized laboratory testing services for drug discovery and development, has completed a private equity financing with Ampersand Ventures (Wellesley, MA, USA). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The primary focus of ChanTest is a family of proteins known as ion channels. There are 400 genes encoding ion channels in the human genome, and countless more can be assembled from this gene collection. These ion channels may either represent targets for new drug development, or unintended targets that can result in unwanted side effects from new drugs. The functional, cell-based ion channel testing is a means to predict cardiac side effects produced by non-cardiac drugs. Such testing is now a standard component of regulatory submissions prior to approval of drugs in humans.

Development is continuing of ChanTest's library or catalog of ion channel-expressing cell lines. Each cell line may be thought of as an "ion channel book.” The company validates the structure, function, and pharmacology of each book using conventional and automated methods, and arranges them into ion channel panels according to tissue (e.g., cardiac channel panel) or disease (e.g., pain/inflammation channel panel). Pharmaceutical and biotech companies can profile the efficacy and selectivity of drug leads against a broad set of ion channels in functional, cell-based assays. Drug leads, or even large compound collections, can be checked against the entire library or specific panels. At present the catalog contains 35 different ion channels.

Dr. Arthur Brown, founder and CEO of ChanTest said, "Since introducing the Channel Panel services last year, we have been very pleased with the market response, which we believe reflects the latent demand for this previously unavailable capability. We intend to continue expanding the number of channel panels, as well as pursuing other important innovations in this field.”


Related Links:
ChanTest
Ampersand Ventures