Althea Awarded Innovative Toxicology Grant From NIH
Phase I SBIR grant received from the Innovative Toxicology Models Program of the National Institutes of Health
SAN DIEGO – June 23, 2004 – Althea Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of innovative technologies for pharmaceutical services and manufacturing, announced today that it has received a Phase I SBIR grant from the Innovative Toxicology Models Program of the National Institutes of Health, by way of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). The objective of this grant is to develop a low cost mechanism for translating gene-expression-based research in toxicology into validated, high-throughput, expression screens for the assessment of a range of different toxicological and disease mechanistic endpoints. The approach takes advantage of Althea’s eXpress Profiling™ technology, a high-throughput, highly-multiplexed, quantitative rtPCR-based gene expression analysis technique recently licensed to Beckman Coulter, Inc. eXpress Profiling incorporates the use of gene-specific and universal primers to lock gene ratios during PCR amplification of 20-30 genes per reaction.
“Althea is committed to providing the tools necessary to make molecular toxicology a practical and indispensable part of drug development,” stated Dr. Joseph Monforte, Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer. “Almost half of all approved drugs, including major drug classes such as barbiturates, antihistamines, anti-infective, statins and chemotherapy agents test positive as genotoxic or non-genotoxic carcinogens using current in vitro assays. It is important that new in vitro assays, like those using eXpress Profiling, be developed to be more predictive and provide more information at the mechanistic level. Furthermore, current assays provide very little information that can be used to prioritize a list of drug candidates in terms of selecting which candidates to take first through additional testing, which is an important benefit of eXpress Profiling.”
This grant will focus on the development and validation of gene sets and predictive classifiers for specific and important toxicological endpoints. Althea’s aim is to provide a roadmap for translating microarray-based discoveries into high throughput, low cost assays and validating their use in the drug discovery and development processes.
“In our services and in partnership with Beckman Coulter we are providing a new tool for investigating the mechanistic activities of existing and potential therapeutics,” stated Dr. François Ferré, Co-President and Co-CEO. “Our goal is to use eXpress Profiling to help researchers make more informed choices in drug development."
About Althea Technologies
Althea is a pharmaceutical services firm providing innovative technology access and a number of specialized services to support researchers worldwide in their attempts to understand the mechanisms of disease and to accelerate the development of new therapeutics. Althea’s services include GLP and non-GLP gene expression analyses using its proprietary eXpress Profiling technology and real-time PCR, custom genomic analyses using real-time PCR, cGMP contract manufacturing of plasmid DNA and recombinant proteins, formulation and aseptic filling services. For more information, visit www.altheatech.com.
###
Contact:
Althea Technologies, Inc.
Alan Moore
Executive Vice President and CBO
(858) 882-0205
amoore@altheatech.com