Open R&D Platform Developed for Iterative, Predictive, and Integrative Biology

Three bioinformatics companies are joining forces to set up a new analytic platform that should help life-sciences companies to run smarter, cheaper, and safer R&D programs.

The BioXplain Platform was presented at BiO in Atlanta (GA, USA), in May 2009, by the three companies involved in the partnership: Bio-Modeling Systems (Paris, France), BioXpr, SA (Namur, Belgium), and Kayentis (Paris, France).

In spite of booming pharmaceuticals R&D expenditures, the drug attrition rate has unabatedly increased over the last 20 years. Several international initiatives, such as the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) IMI (Innovative Medicines Initiative) joint undertaking, have uncovered important logjams in the R&D continuum, in particular, predictive pharmacology, toxicity, and lack of relevant biomarkers, which contribute to the continuous worsening of an unacceptable trend.

In order to rapidly reverse this trend, the current R&D process should be revised, according to the companies involved, and new and innovative approaches adopted to better sort the ever-expanding amounts of heterogeneous datasets generated and uncover the nonlinear mechanisms of life and diseases to effectively design better medicines and treatment strategies.

Manuel Gea, cofounder and CEO of Bio-Modeling Systems, commented, "We are very excited at the prospect of proposing our CAD [computer-assisted deductive integration] molecular maps within the BioXplain environment. We are confident that this new concept will help the pharmaceutical industry to treat the actual causes of diseases rather than the symptoms, as has so often been the case, particularly in cancer and CNS [central nervous system] diseases for instance.”

Dr. Benjamin Damien, cofounder and CEO of BioXpr SA, added, "The Iterative nature of the BioXplain platform will enable the continuous intake of experimental and literature data in order to fine tune the CAD molecular maps and deliver faster desperately needed new first-in-class drug targets, relevant predictive efficacy and safety biomarkers, and new synergistic drug treatments.”

Philippe Berna, cofounder and CEO of Kayentis concluded, "The work already achieved in deciphering new signaling pathways and in proposing possible new treatment approaches, in oncology for hRas-dependent breast cancer progression and in CNS with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease for instance, paves the way for other important future breakthroughs within these two classes of pathologies. We are sure that our unique Clinform' platform will contribute to a larger and better use of research, preclinical and clinical datasets in the R&D process, especially for translational medicine.”

Bio-Modeling Systems is a research-based biotech company that creates CAD models to harness and clarify the nonlinear mechanisms of life and diseases, thus reveal important biomarkers and therapeutic targets. CAD models belong to the nonmathematical holistic and heuristic class of models. They can describe the dynamics of a pathologic process and/or the pathologic mechanisms vs. control. The CAD modeling approach has repeatedly allowed researchers to take the best possible decisions for the best possible results in a minimum of time and resources.

BioXpr provides bioinformatics and biostatistics solutions to collect, store, extract, analyze, compare, and translate in value-added knowledge the ever-expanding amount of data generated by today's high-throughput experiments, clinical trials, bio databases and literature. This creates a high-level business intelligence solution for the pharma and the other life-science R&D sectors.

BioXpr provides cross-discipline/transversal software tools integrating and combining literature and experimental data and by doing so plays an instrumental role in helping its customers: to set up analysis pipelines or data-warehousing facilities; to detect, predict, and monitor multicomponent biomarkers for predictive and translational medicine; to predict drug candidates efficiency/toxicity on the basis of gene expression and/or activated metabolic pathways; to design tools and approaches for personalized medicine; and to build custom, R&D information systems to assist the decision-making process.

Kayentis is a provider of data and real-time information, unbiased capture and safe collection solutions. Built on the forms automation system (FAS) architecture, developed by Hewlett Packard (Palo Alto, CA, USA), which brings together flexibility, and security, Kayentis' solution, Clin'Form (DPP (digital pen and paper) technology, optimizes data and information collection, both qualitatively and quantitatively, and processing solution, by equipping all the pharma R&D and post-marketing players (researchers, laboratory benchworkers, physicians, and patients) with a simple tool: digital pen and smart paper.

Fulfilling the requirements in terms of regulation, traceability, and data security, Clin'Form ensures data capture, gathering, dispatch, processing, sharing, and full traceability via secured web portals. Clin'Form offers the ease of paper data collection combined with all the benefits of the electronic data capture (eDC) approach (accurate timestamps, audit trail functionalities, real-time access, and alerts)

Related Links:
Bio-Modeling Systems
BioXpr
Kayentis