The need for better preclinical disease models

CN Bio Innovations Ltd, which develops human biomimetic platforms to test and develop therapeutics for serious diseases, has signed a research agreement with Imperial College London to advance the development of in vitro models of liver infection based on the company’s LiverChip platform.

The announcement coincided with the WHO World Hepatitis Day and serves to further emphasise the current efforts being forged by industry and academia to find cures for Hepatitis and other serious liver diseases. 

Dr Marcus Dorner, who is the Lead Principal Investigator on the new project at Imperial, commented: “Unfortunately, the liver models currently in widespread use often fail to accurately reproduce what we see in vivo, limiting their utility.” 

He continued: “We’re excited about the early potential shown by CN Bio’s platform for studying the pathology of Hepatitis B and look forward to presenting our results from this ongoing program of work at a number of international conferences this Fall.”

Dr Emma Sceats, COO at CN Bio, said: “We are pleased to extend our relationship with Imperial through this new collaboration with Dr Dorner and Professor Mark Thursz. Forging partnerships with key opinion leaders and academic groups is a cornerstone of our research and development strategy whose goal is to bring to market biomimetic models that will provide unique insights into liver biology and disease pathology. Through alliance partnerships with major pharmaceutical and biotech companies, CN Bio’s experts are using these models to accelerate the development of drugs that will provide life-changing treatment and cures for patients affected by serious liver diseases.”

Early results from the collaboration are due to be presented at a number of conferences including the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) meeting in Boston, November 7–11, 2014. 
 

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