Glasgow, UK: REPROCELL (Biopta) today announced the successful publication of a novel study in pharmacology and genomics to improve strategies for the development of precision medicines. The study – performed in collaboration with the NHS, academia and Scottish companies Fios Genomics, Systemic, and Aridhia – used human living lung tissue from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) donors to explain inter-patient variation in drug efficacy.
COPD is a complex condition with many clinical presentations; many patients therefore receive minimal benefit from commonly prescribed medications. Precision medicine promises to benefit patients who do not respond to medications by opening clear market opportunities to develop effective treatments for them.
“In the age of precision medicine, an early understanding of patient stratification during drug discovery is important”, said Karen Cowan, Senior Research Scientist at REPROCELL (Biopta). “Experimental models that more accurately reflect the biology of disease are therefore being increasingly used by Pharma to improve the prediction of drug efficacy at clinical trials.”
Key findings from the present study include:
- Ex vivo lung tissue from COPD patients responded differently to treatment with fluticasone, roflumilast and combination therapy
- Genetic polymorphisms in COPD patients may lead to variation in treatment response
- Genetic variation in CYP2E1 and SMAD3 genes may party explain the observed variation in drug response
You can read the full paper Application of pharmacogenomics and bioinformatics to exemplify the utility of human ex vivo organoculture models in the field of precision medicine in PLOS ONE here. For media inquiries, please contact zara.puckrin@reprocell.com
About REPROCELL: REPROCELL (Biopta) is a global leader in the commercialization of human fresh tissue research. With over a 17 years of experience in this highly specialized area of research, REPROCELL (Biopta) has worked with 24 of the top 25 pharma companies in the world to bring drugs to market more efficiently and economically. You can find out more about the company’s predictive drug discovery assays in their assay catalog.
