Drug Inactive Ingredient Bioactivities Revealed with BioMAP® Platform Published in Science Magazine

ST. CHARLES, Mo., Aug. 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Eurofins Discovery, the leading provider of services and products to the drug discovery industry, announces publication of "The Activities of Drug Inactive Ingredients on Biological Targets" by Pottel et. al., in Science. This peer-reviewed publication describes analysis of excipient interactions with biological targets and the effects of excipients in human phenotypic assays, assessed using Eurofins Discovery's BioMAP^® Platform. Excipients are ingredients added during the formulation and manufacturing of a medicine to aid in manufacturing, bioavailability, and storage integrity of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API). The publication represents a collaborative effort led by Brian Shoichet from the University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA and Laszlo Urban of Novartis, Cambridge, MA.

To understand the contribution of excipients to biological effects and safety impacts of marketed drugs, the authors took a two-pronged approach: computational methods to identify potential targets of more than 600 FDA approved excipients, and experimental screening of 73 widespread excipients against a panel of safety-related and other targets. In parallel, phenotypic profiling using the combination of human disease models and advanced analytics provided by the BioMAP Platform enabled assessment of bioactivities and toxicity-related effects of 12 common excipients frequently found in drug formulations. Phenotypic profiling using BioMAP Diversity PLUS^® Panels allowed the team to determine activities and toxicity signatures, including for those excipients found in common drugs including hydrocodone, simvastatin, and levothyroxine.

This proof-of-concept study demonstrates a systematic, multi-pronged approach to determine bioactivities of excipients at concentrations reflective of what may exist in patients exposed to multiple medications, supplements, and or personal care products. In this study, drug excipients, formally classified as "inactive ingredients", were shown to have substantial activities on medically relevant targets and in human cell-based models of tissue biology. While these results do not necessarily imply that excipients will have adverse effects on human health, they do suggest that caution and further study are warranted.

Access the full article on Science.

Learn more about Eurofins Discovery's BioMAP Platform: eurofinsdiscoveryservices.com/biomap

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About Eurofins Discovery

Eurofins Discovery, a business operating under the Eurofins BioPharma Services division, has supported Drug Discovery research for over 40 years. Eurofins is recognized as the industry leader for providing drug discovery researchers the largest and most diverse portfolio of standard and custom in vitro safety & pharmacology assays and panels for drug screening and profiling. In addition to in vitro safety pharmacology strengths, we also offer a broad portfolio of over 3500 drug discovery services and 1800 products. These include in vitro assays, cell-based phenotypic assays, safety pharmacology and efficacy, ADME toxicology, medicinal chemistry design, synthetic chemistry, and custom proteins and assay development capabilities. We support a variety of drug discovery targets such as GPCRs, Kinases, Ion Channels, Nuclear Hormone Receptors and other proteins & enzymes. The Eurofins Discovery capabilities, expertise, knowledge and skill sets enable the company to provide clients the benefit of being able to work with a single outsourcing provider (CRO) for all their drug discovery programs.

About Eurofins – the global leader in bio-analysis

Eurofins Scientific, through its subsidiaries (hereinafter "Eurofins" or "the Group"), believes it is the global leader in food, environmental, pharmaceutical and cosmetics products testing and in agroscience CRO services. It is also one of the global independent market leaders in certain testing and laboratory services for genomics, discovery pharmacology, forensics, CDMO, advanced material sciences and in the support of clinical studies. In addition, Eurofins is one of the leading global emerging players in esoteric and molecular clinical diagnostic testing. With over 47,000 staff across a network of more than 900 independent companies in over 50 countries generally specialised by end client markets and operating more than 800 laboratories, Eurofins offers a portfolio of over 200,000 analytical methods to evaluate the safety, identity, composition, authenticity, origin, traceability and purity of a wide range of products, as well as providing innovative clinical diagnostic testing services. The Group's objective is to provide customers with high-quality and innovative services, accurate results on time and, when requested, expert advice by its highly-qualified staff.

Eurofins is committed to pursuing its dynamic growth strategy by expanding both its technology portfolio and its geographic reach. Through R&D and acquisitions, the Group draws on the latest developments in the field of biotechnology and analytical chemistry to offer its clients unique analytical solutions and a very large range of testing methods.

As one of the most innovative and quality-oriented international groups in its industry, Eurofins is ideally positioned to support its clients' increasingly stringent quality and safety standards and the increasing demands of regulatory authorities and healthcare practitioners around the world.

Shares in Eurofins Scientific are listed on the Euronext Paris Stock Exchange (ISIN FR0000038259, Reuters EUFI.PA, Bloomberg ERF FP).

For more information, please visit www.eurofins.com.

SOURCE Eurofins Discovery

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