Monday, October 28, 2019
HistoIndex announces the expansion of its AI-based digital pathology platform towards large-scale NASH preclinical programs for pharmaceutical and biotech companies to achieve quantifiable and reproducible data on therapeutic responses in NASH animal models, and to aid CROs as well as research agencies in validating new models mimicking the NASH disease.
Published preclinical studies have demonstrated the use of HistoIndex's fully quantifiable Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) technology as a highly accurate stain-free method that can monitor the efficacy of various therapeutic agents, by quantifying more than 450 NASH-associated parameters in fibrosis, inflammation, ballooning and steatosis. The information of these NASH-associated parameters gathered from the entire liver tissue, provides comprehensive insights on the mechanism of action of the therapeutic agent. As a drug discovery tool, HistoIndex's SHG-enabled digital pathology platform will allow pharmaceutical and biotech companies to select promising lead candidates for further optimization and make informed decisions in the management of their NASH drug development pipeline.
In addition to ongoing NASH clinical trials, HistoIndex is currently involved in multiple preclinical studies, most of which are conducted by major pharmaceutical and biotech companies, medical universities, CROs and research agencies. Notably, HistoIndex has recently entered into a collaboration with the A*STAR's Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) to validate their in vivo and in vitro NASH models based on Asian-centric clinical data. Says Professor Patrick Tan, Executive Director of the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), "At GIS, we conduct our preclinical studies on fatty liver involving data from animal models based on patient-derived transcriptomic data. This has a high translational potential as it helps us to pinpoint new therapeutic targets and their validation. Therefore, using a fully quantitative, reliable and objective pathological evaluation such as HistoIndex's AI-based digital pathology platform is essential to the success of our efforts in therapeutic target discovery."
HistoIndex is also a partner with globally-renowned CRO, WuXi Apptec, in advancing their NASH preclinical programs with advanced R&D and smart imaging analysis capabilities. Published study data will be available for discussions during networking opportunities throughout AASLD's The Liver Meeting® in November 2019.
"We are very excited to extend our AI-based SHG platform to preclinical studies to help companies with drug discovery programs select promising lead candidates for further optimization and subsequent clinical development," says Dr Poon Thong Yuen, Chief Executive Officer of HistoIndex. "Our SHG image analysis platform has already been used to analyze the efficacy of a series of promising drug candidates for NASH within various animal models commonly-used by the industry, and we believe these preclinical partnerships will help drive the adoption of our platform significantly."
