Iconix Signs key Toxicogenomics Deal With Merck KGaA

Iconix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has announced a services agreement with Merck KGaA. Under the terms of the agreement, Iconix scientists will compare several of Merck's compounds with compounds from similar classes of molecules and with marketed products to allow the Darmstadt, Germany-based company to gain insight into the safety of new drug candidates in the early stages of pre-clinical development.

In this collaboration Merck shows that it is one of the leading pharmaceutical companies that are applying in vitro toxicogenomics to understand the safety profiles of new drug compounds at early stages of development when limited amounts of drug compounds are available for testing.

In vitro toxicogenomics offers the potential for companies to reduce the attrition rate of compounds due to safety problems in the later stages of drug development when those problems are far more costly.

Iconix's in vitro database includes gene expression profiles on 119 compound treatments on primary rat hepatocytes and is based on pathology, toxicology, and pharmacology endpoints from the company's flagship in vivo database, DrugMatrix, the toxicogenomics database profiling over 600 benchmark drugs, toxicants and standards.

"By augmenting our in-house resources with Iconix's expert toxicogenomics analysis and reporting services, we are able to jumpstart a program that promises to give us a better picture of a compound's safety profile at an early stage of its development," said Dr Phil Hewitt, Merck KGaA.

"Companies like Merck KGaA are using this new in vitro approach to provide an early toxicology read on multiple compounds at lead optimization stage, and are seeing clear benefits by efficiently prioritizing the safer candidates for further development," said Dr. Donald Halbert, head of R&D for Iconix.

"We expect that soon, the most competitive pharmaceutical companies will all be applying in vitro toxicogenomics to their decision making."