AFFINERGY, LLC — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In order to reduce the cost of bringing a new drug t
AFFINERGY, LLC — SBIR Phase I award from Department of Health and Human Services.
- Amount
- $280,547
- Agency
- Department of Health and Human Services · National Institutes of Health
- Program / Phase
- SBIR · Phase I
- Solicitation
- PA13-234
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- NC
- Period
- —
Description
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In order to reduce the cost of bringing a new drug to market, drug candidates with a high probability for failure must be identified early in their development. The pharmaceutical industry employs in vitro liver modelsto screen new drugs for undesirable toxic metabolites and harmful drug-drug interactions. Primary human hepatocytes are the preferred model for assessing drug metabolism, hepatoxicity, drug-drug interactions, and CYP450 enzyme induction. However, the availability of fresh human hepatocytes is unpredictable, leading researchers to develop cryopreservation methods that enable long-term hepatocyte storage. Despite the advantages of this technique, 50% of hepatocytes lose their ability to attach to culture plates following cryopreservation. Unlike plated hepatocytes that remain viable for days to weeks, hepatocytes in suspension are only viable for a few hours; thus, non-plateable hepatocytes are limited in use to only short-term metabolic assays. Ultimate