ChanTest to Highlight the World’s Largest Catalog of Ion Channel-Expressing Cell Lines and Discovery Services at Drug Discovery Technology, Booth 839

ChanTest’s role as the preeminent provider of validated ion channel expressing cell lines and services for drug-discovery and development applications will be featured at the Drug Discovery Technologies conference in Boston next month. The Cleveland-based company will be exhibiting in booth 839 its expanding line of ion channel services designed to give drug-discovery researchers the early information they need to identify the most promising compounds, and eliminate those that could be harmful.

ChanTest’s ion channel cell lines and services are also becoming valuable new tools to help rescue shelved pharmaceutical compounds. Dr. Arthur (Buzz) Brown, ChanTest’s founder and CEO, will address conference attendees on that topic as part of the panel “Transforming Technologies in Preclinical & Clinical Development” that starts 8:30 am on Wednesday, August 6. Dr. Brown’s presentation, “Successes Using Ion Channel Targets for Repurposed Drugs,” is scheduled for 10:10 am.

“Over the years the pharmaceutical and biotech industries have shelved thousands of promising drug candidates because they may induce cardiac or other dangerous side effects in a small subset of potential users,” said Dr. Brown. “This ‘warehouse’ of extant, withdrawn, or discontinued drugs represents billions of dollars of discovery and development cost. Our safety assays and rapidly expanding library of ion channel-expressing cell lines are offering new hope to drug-discovery researchers looking to recover and repurpose some of those candidates and recoup their previous investment. For example, we identified a client’s compound that had failed for lack of efficacy but had an intriguing profile in one of our ion channel panel screens. After validation in an animal model of atrial fibrillation (AF), compound CT-1 is being tested for termination of AF in a Phase 2a proof-of-concept clinical trial. Initial results of oral administration in 22 patients show a termination rate of ~ 70 percent, well above the 30-percent rate for the antiarrhytmics used presently.”

ChanTest scientists were the first to prove hERG as the target for adverse cardiac events linked to non-cardiac drugs: Seldane (terfenadine), Propulsid (cisapride), and Nizoral (ketoconazole), and ChanTest pioneered the development of functional, cell-based ion channel testing as a means to predict cardiac side effects produced by non-cardiac drugs. Such testing is now a standard component of regulatory submissions prior to the approval of drugs for use in humans. ChanTest is committed to innovation, and is leading the next major advance in ion channel research and services with a $10 million program to develop the world’s most extensive library or catalog of ion channels. ChanTest’s expert electrophysiologists fully validate the ion channels for interrogation with functional, pharmacological, and biochemical assays.

The 13th Annual World Congress of Drug Discovery & Development of Innovative Therapeutics takes place August 4-7, 2008 at the World Trade Center Boston and The Seaport Hotel. The Exhibition runs August 5-6.