FDA NCTR

The challenge

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) is a global resource for collaboration providing consultation, training, and innovative scientific solutions in support of FDA’s mission to improve public health. Within NCTR, The Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics is developing bioinformatics methodologies and standards to support FDA research and regulation for regulatory and translational sciences.  The Division, led by Weida Tong, has tremendous expertise in computational biology, molecular modeling and quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) and a wealth of new data and ideas to disseminate.  ApconiX was set the challenge to help refine and deliver a publication and communication strategy as well as helping to define new areas of potential impact for the team’s expertise.

The solution

We worked closely with the team at NCTR in individual and in syndicate sessions to identify key messages and match them to publication opportunities.  Based on the strength of the teams, we focused on two of their flagship projects:  developing and applying new computational approaches to the challenge of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) and to in vitro to in vivo extrapolation (IVIVE).   Using the expertise of individual scientists, we worked one-to-one to author papers through from first draft to submission and response to reviewers’ comments.

The benefit

By performing a systematic analysis of the new and unpublished data the team had generated, we developed a clear publication and dissemination strategy to maximise the impact of the team’s current and ongoing work.

The outcome

The collaboration has resulted in the submission of 5 papers in just 12 months.  In DILI, the in vitro to in vivo extrapolation (IVIVE) methodology and liver knowledge toxicology base (LKTB) classification of human liver injury papers are in press and a third paper on gene signatures is submitted ^1-3.  In the area of drug repositioning, a TiPS paper on computational approaches to analyse two decades of experience of anti-cancer drugs was recently published ⁴ and a second paper looking for new opportunities in rare diseases ⁵ is in press.

1. Liu, Z, Delavan, B, Roberts, R and Tong, W (2018). Gene Signature Reveals Differences among Preclinical Testing Systems for Rat Liver.  Frontiers in Genetics. Submitted.
2. Thakkar, S, Chen, M, Fang, H, Liu, Z, Roberts, R, Tong, W (2018). The Liver Toxicity Knowledge Base (LKTB) and Drug-Induced Liver Injury (DILI) Classification for Assessment of Human Liver Injury. Expert review of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.  12, 31-38. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17474124.2018.1383154

3. Liu, Z, Fang, H, Roberts, RA and Tong, W (2017). In vitro to in vivo extrapolation (IVIVE) for drug-induced liver injury: A genome wide analysis using a drug pair ranking (DPRank) method. ALTEX.  https://doi.org/10.14573/altex.1610201

4. Liu, Z, Delavan, B, Roberts, R and Tong, W (2017). Lessons learned from two decades of anticancer drugs. TiPS 38, 852-872.    https://www.cell.com/trends/pharmacological-sciences/fulltext/S0165-6147(17)30126-8

5. Delavan, B, Roberts, R, Goldsmith, J, Fang, H, Thakkar, S, Huang, R, Bao, W, Tong, W and Liu, Z (2017). Computational Drug Repositioning for Rare Diseases in the era of Precision Medicine.  Drug Discovery Today.  In press Dec 2017.  DOI: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359644617301587?via%3Dihub

The Testimonial

Redx Pharma

The challenge

Redx Pharma is a drug discovery and development company focused on creating new drugs for areas of unmet medical need such as cancer and immunology.  As their portfolio rapidly matured, Redx recognised a need for expert safety input as well as ion channel screening data, to develop high quality clinical candidates.

The solution

ApconiX was engaged by Redx in 2016 as a strategic partner to provide nonclinical safety support to the portfolio.  In this role, we provided ion channel screening services and project toxicology expertise to the Redx oncology, infection and inflammation business units.

The benefit

Through this relationship, Redx had flexible access to the entire team of nonclinical safety experts, without needing to build this capability internally.  Our experts worked closely with Redx scientists, to provide guidance on nonclinical safety and DMPK strategy, as well as gap analysis, data interpretation and advice on next steps.  For the lead programs entering GLP toxicity studies, we worked with Redx to influence study design and decision-making, as well as data interpretation.  We co-authored the submission documents and participated in regulatory agency interactions.

The outcome

In this extremely successful partnership, we have developed a model relationship with Redx Pharma.  For the two most advanced projects, one was successfully divested to a US biotech, and the other achieved a successful CTA, with the first cancer patients dosed in February 2018.

We continue to work closely with Redx to deliver the next wave of novel medicines to patients.

Blueberry Therapeutics

The challenge

Blueberry Therapeutics is a dermatology biotech company developing innovative topical drugs for a range of diseases, using a novel ‘nano-delivery’ platform. This technique significantly enhances the penetration of drugs into cells and tissues. ApconiX was set the challenge to provide guidance on the most appropriate nonclinical safety studies needed to support the clinical development of Blueberry’s new treatments for fungal infection.

The solution

We worked closely with Blueberry scientists to develop an innovative strategy to support the initiation of clinical studies on their lead compound. We started by identifying the specific scientific questions that needed to be addressed and focusing on the data needed to answer them. By utilising existing information from numerous sources, we were able to build a case to present to regulatory agencies that sufficient evidence was already available to support the safe use in clinical studies.

The benefit

By performing a systematic analysis of published data, we developed a clear scientific rationale to support the proposed clinical trial design, without the need for further nonclinical studies to support ‘First time in Man’ testing.

The outcome

This work was discussed at a successful face-to-face meeting with European regulators resulting in approval for Blueberry to begin clinical testing of this novel therapeutic agent.

The Testimonial