To mark its 10th anniversary, Drug Discovery & Development magazine invited industry vendors to reflect on the history and made predictions about future of the industry. Featured here are verbatim comments from this company.
Absorption Systems LP
Headquarters
Exton, Pa.
Years in Drug Research
10 Years
Spokesperson
Patrick Dentinger,President and CEO
Web site
About the company
Absorption Systems is a preclinical contract research organization focusing exclusively on the ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion) properties of drugs. The depth of available assay systems includes in vitro, in situ, and in vivo models. The breadth of our services ranges from physicochemical measurements, in vitro permeability, and in vivo pharmacokinetics to definitive identification of P-gp and BCRP substrates, CYP inhibition and induction, support of BCS biowaivers, and bioanalytical services (GLP and non-GLP). We also sell our new, proprietary cell lines, CellPort Technologies, which enable the definitive identification of interactions with drug efflux transporters.
The company’s line of business as it was 10 years ago. Changes in life science/drug research that influenced business.
Other than broadening our service portfolio from "absorption" (hence the name "Absorption Systems"), initially, to all of ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion) over the past ten years, the way we do business has not changed fundamentally over that time. We bucked the high-throughput screening fad, preferring to focus on performing a larger number of lower-volume tests, thereby generating higher-quality data that we can interpret for our customers. Keeping science central has served us well.
Scientific challenges in the next 10 years.
Technologies such as the one on which Absorption Systems was founded ten years ago, the Caco-2 cell monolayer, an in vitro model for predicting the absorption of orally administered drugs, have had a marked impact on drug discovery. Since the early 90s, largely as a result of the availability and widespread use of in vitro models such as Caco-2 cell monolayers, human liver microsomes and human hepatocytes, the main reason for the failure of investigational drugs in clinical trials has shifted from undesirable pharmacokinetic properties to toxicity. A continuing challenge, going forward, will be the reliable in vitro prediction of clinical toxicity of drugs.
Factor(s) that drove the development of technologies during the last 10 years. Greatest area of growth.
Our biggest technology driver over the past ten years has been the recognition of the importance of drug transport proteins in terms of pharmacokinetics, efficacy and drug-drug interactions. One result has been the in-house development of novel human cell lines to enable the definitive identification of compounds that are substrates of efflux transporters such as P-glycoprotein, BCRP and MRP2. We anticipate that this will be our biggest growth area in the next ten years.
Bold Prediction: Where will drug research technology be in 10 years?
Functional testing, in primary cells and other relatively complex systems, will replace pharmacologic screening based on potency at a single molecular target. The outcome will be more effective drugs, but the challenge will be to develop structure-activity relationships around assays in which multiple targets may be involved.
