Solutions for drug discovery

One of the key requirements in drug discovery is the ability to conduct research on the most appropriate cells types. In order to conduct long term cell-based research on a consistent cell resource, these cells must be genetically stable, be capable of self-renewal over extended periods and be reliably available at scale. SCS has developed and markets a panel of human and rodent stem cell lines that meets these needs.

The need for physiologically relevant cells extends to safety pharmacology where SCS’s human ES and pericyte cell lines offer the potential to carry out safety pharmacology at the time when chemists first present molecules thus identifying costly failures earlier. This earlier identification of toxic response in human cell types, which our stem cell technologies enable, is set to revolutionise traditional approaches to safety and supports the pharmaceutical industry’s move to more disease-focused discovery.

SCS offers the opportunity to work quickly and systematically with stem cell-based assays to test the hypotheses, formulated from in-silico models. This more rational and efficient approach to the discovery phase supports swifter identification of areas of interest and the faster elimination of compounds that exhibit poor safety and efficacy.

In addition to supplying native normal stem cell lines capable of generating cells which endogenously express a particular therapeutic target, SCS offers several novel routes to improved in-vitro disease models.
SCS can develop disease specific assays by producing recombinant stem cell lines expressing a therapeutic target. Alternatively, subject to the donation of tissue and ethical permissions, SCS can derive disease specific cell lines where for example, human neural stem cells carry the disease markers for Alzheimer’s disease. Finally, SCS is working towards the reprogramming of adult somatic cells which will afford a unique opportunity; to develop neural cell-based assays for brain disorders, in which aspects of abnormal biochemistry are emulated precisely from reprogrammed patient’s skin cells

Our technology and expertise points the way to an ever more exciting repertoire of disease-specific cell lines.