Caliper Life Sciences, a provider of tools and services for drug discovery and life sciences research, has received the remaining balance of the compound library for the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Phase II ToxCast screening program.
The US EPA has reported the next phase of toxicity screening, in which a total of 1,000 chemicals (300 compounds in Phase 1 and 700 additional compounds in Phase II) will be screened as part of EPA’s ToxCast initiative.
The ToxCast program was initiated to speed up the identification of potentially toxic compounds and the impact of chemical exposure on the human body and relies on innovative research approaches that predict toxicity while minimising reliance on animal models.
Caliper Life Sciences president and CEO Kevin Hrusovsky said the Caliper team is very pleased with their contributions to ToxCast to date, and they are excited to receive the remaining compounds (350 Phase IIb compounds) for the EPA’s Phase II ToxCast screening program.
"Receiving this most recent compound set will allow our scientists to complete Phase IIb compound screening over the next several months, and will likely push Caliper’s revenue to the top end of our corporate revenue guidance range for the fourth quarter and full year," Hrusovsky said.
Caliper Discovery Alliances and Services’ (CDAS) predictive toxicity panel has been used in the EPA ToxCast screening program, and increasingly by pharmaceutical, agricultural and cosmetic companies, to assess potential chemical toxicity of their compounds in commercial development.
The CDAS assays use human and animal proteins which mediate key biological functions in the body to screen for possible adverse or toxic effects of chemicals.
The goal of the ToxCast program is to reduce the EPA’s dependence on expensive and lengthy animal testing and implement solutions that enable faster identification of harmful chemicals at a lower cost and with higher accuracy.