Deal targets shelved drug candidates

Bio-simulation technology is at the heart of a business collaboration. It's a business model that seems to get talked about: the idea of retrieving drugs that have disappointed in clinical trials to see if they can be "repurposed" for some condition other than that originally targeted. The business model is attractive, of course, because it allows the retriever to potentially capitalize on all the time and money spent originally on the drug, and it can provide at least a meager payoff for the company that did the initial discovery and development work.

Optimata has signed an agreement with generics-maker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries for clinical development of drug candidates for solid tumor cancers. The agreement "is intended to rescue and redirect the clinical development of discontinued drug candidates" using the Optimata Virtual Patient bio-simulation technology, according to an announcement.

The Virtual Patient toolkit is predictive software that, among other things, allows developers to conduct virtual trials, track dosing and timing, and monitor drug interactions for safety profiling, according to sister publication FierceBiotech.

- here's the announcement
- here's the FierceBiotech item

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