BUSINESS WIRE)– Asterand plc (LSE: ATD), a leading provider of human tissue and human tissue-based services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies engaged in drug discovery, today announced that it has launched Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) compliant molecular pathology services supporting preclinical safety studies. The Company’s first new service offering will be tissue cross reactivity testing for therapeutic antibodies in order to supply clients with critical data required by regulatory authorities such as the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) for investigational new drug submissions. Acceptance as a member of the UK GLP Compliance Monitoring Programme will also allow Asterand to expand its offering of GLP compliant preclinical services to its pharmaceutical and biotech clients.
Dr. Tony Brown, General Manager, UK Operations commented:
“We are extremely pleased to add GLP compliant tissue cross reactivity studies to our growing suite of PhaseZERO® services. These services will meet a critical need within a new market for Asterand. Our key customers are the world’s top 30 pharmaceutical companies, who increasingly look to source a broader range of services from external providers. This acceptance into the UK GLP Monitoring Compliance Programme allows us to broaden our service offering and provide more opportunities for our customers to develop “one-stop shop” partnerships with Asterand.”
Dr. Keith Page, Senior Department Head, Molecular Pathology noted:
“Asterand has made a significant investment to create a state of the art facility for providing GLP compliant immunohistochemical studies. In addition to installing a GLP compliant laboratory and quality system, we’ve developed a unique frozen tissue microarray platform to allow for rapid and scientifically meaningful pre-screening of therapeutic antibody candidates prior to full GLP compliant studies. These combined resources, supported by our ability to access difficult to obtain human tissue samples, will allow us to deliver high quality data with rapid turnaround, in a cost effective manner to our clients.”
Asterand’s UK service division offers exemplary scientific expertise in human tissue research. Through its PhaseZERO® service platform the Company provides multinational pharmaceutical companies with compound evaluation, target and biomarker validation studies. With the ability to offer GLP compliant studies as part of the PhaseZERO® services platform, the Company is now adding preclinical safety studies for regulatory submission to its existing services in the areas of molecular pathology, compound potency, efficacy, disposition and safety.
About ASTERAND
Asterand plc is a leading supplier of high quality human tissue and tissue-based services. Our comprehensive approach to human tissue and research services offers pharmaceutical, biotech and diagnostic companies the unique opportunity to have one Company meet all of their human biomaterial needs along the continuum of drug discovery and development. Our mission is to accelerate target discovery and compound validation and enable pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to take safer and more effective drugs into the market.
For more information, go to www.asterand.com.
