OREANDA-NEWS. June 06, 2012.  In the development of novel drugs, early recognition of potential toxicological effects and their underlying mechanisms is of utmost importance. To support the cost- and time-effective development of new compounds with more favorable toxicological profiles, Metanomics Health GmbH is launching MetaMap ® Tox , a powerful tool for biopharmaceutical safety research. MetaMap ® Tox is a service evaluating specific metabolomic patterns in vivo, enabling customers to better and faster identify potential safety risks of test compounds in in vivo studies of rats.

 MetaMap ® Tox has been developed in-house by BASF’s Experimental Toxicology and Ecology unit and will be marketed through Metanomics Health. Over a period of seven years, more than 500 chemical entities were thoroughly tested in vivo to generate and validate more than 100 metabolomic fingerprints of different toxicological modes of action. These data allow for a faster and better assessment of toxicological profiles of new chemical entities (NCEs). MetaMap ® Tox thereby addresses key unmet needs for in vivo toxicology testing: predictability, understanding of a toxicology mechanism and  the ability for translation to clinical use.

 MetaMap ® Tox has been technically validated by the Drug Safety Executive Council (DSEC), in a consortium approach of twelve leading biopharmaceutical companies following the goal to advance new technologies for the development of better and safer medicines worldwide. It will be offered in two distinct service packages: MetaMap ® Tox Screener and MetaMap ® Tox Profiler .