Simcyp Develops Dog Simulator for Virtual Preclinical Absorption Studies

SHEFFIELD, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Simcyp Limited today announces that it has extended the capabilities of its animal Simulator allowing modelling and simulation studies involving the administration and testing of medicines to be performed in the virtual beagle dog. The new features have been implemented at the request of the world’s major pharmaceutical companies which make up the Simcyp Consortium.

Studies on beagle dogs can be used by scientists to gauge the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) properties of a medicine, prior to testing on humans. Simcyp’s sophisticated technology for testing drugs in ‘virtual’ dogs helps reduce, refine and replace testing on animals. This tackles some of the ethical concerns of such investigations, which can also be very costly and time-consuming for pharmaceutical developers.

Simcyp’s animal module, which already incorporates virtual rat studies, is particularly suitable for investigating oral absorption of drugs – the most common studies performed in beagle dogs. ‘Real-life’ outcomes are assessed by extrapolating data from in vitro experiments to the whole animal and, for the first time, some inter-individual variability within the beagle dog population can be accounted for. Additional flexibility within the Simcyp models allows users to create their own virtual dog and tailor simulations to their specific requirements.

Professor Amin Rostami-Hodjegan, Director of Scientific Research and Development for Simcyp Limited said: “To ease use within drug discovery, many of the features of Simcyp’s human population-based simulator such as automated sensitivity analysis and batch processing have been extended to both the Simcyp Rat and Dog models. A unique feature of Simcyp Dog is the so-called ‘mechanistic permeability’ model which our absorption team have developed. Following successful execution of this feature in dogs we intend to extend the model into our flagship Simcyp Simulator for human populations.”

The enhancements to the Simcyp Animal module are being released with Version 10.1 of the Simcyp Population-based Simulator which is available to all Consortium Members. Commenting on the release, John Evans, Managing Director of Simcyp Limited said: “Simcyp is in continual dialogue with its Consortium clients who guide the company’s cutting-edge research and development activities. We also understand that regulatory authorities are interested in putting the virtual dog models to use for developing veterinary medicines. We are very proud to be able to stay abreast of trends within the industry through these regular upgrades to the Simcyp Simulator.”

About Simcyp

Simcyp provides platforms for the modelling and simulation of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics in virtual human populations and virtual laboratory animals. The company’s main product the ‘Simcyp Population-based Simulator’ is used by the majority of the world’s global pharmaceutical companies (including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca). The technology allows pharmaceutical researchers to predict in vivo outcomes from routinely generated in vitro data, to fit Simcyp models to observed clinical data and to assess inter-individual variability through ‘real-life’ simulations. This informs decision-making in drug development. Recent advances in Simcyp’s technology include the ability to evaluate drug-drug interactions involving therapeutic proteins – an important development due to the increasing use of biologics and their prominence in multi-drug therapies.

Simcyp also provides expert consultancy services, runs educational workshops and supports academic and drug regulatory research through the provision of not-for-profit Simulator licenses to over sixty associate institutions.

For further information please visit www.simcyp.com

Spokespeople for Simcyp Limited are available on request.