MitoSciences Inc announced an agreement with Roche Pharma to generate mitochondrial toxicity profiles for over 100 known kinase inhibitors.

Under the agreement, Roche will provide the compound library plus previously-gathered data from in vivo and in vitro experiments, and MitoSciences will apply its MitoTox technology to provide in vitro data for a broad set of mitochondrial toxicity endpoints.

Kinase inhibitors are an increasingly important class of drugs for cancer, diabetes, inflammation, and other disease, and many are known to have off-target effects or to cause other types of toxicity to mitochondria. MitoTox technology employs antibody-based assays for measuring the function, expression, and post-translational modification of key mitochondrial enzymes in dosed cells.

Using the MitoTox technology drug companies can identify early in the drug development process the specific sites and mechanisms of drug-induced mitochondrial inhibition. Given the increased emphasis by drug companies on earlier identification of toxic effects, and the growing recognition of mitochondria as important sites of such effects, the MitoTox technology is receiving a great deal of attention and is being applied by drug companies both large and small.

"The project with Roche is very exciting as it will be the first such study looking at the specific mito-toxic effects of a large set of well-characterized kinase inhibitors," said Jean-Paul Audette, CEO of MitoSciences.

"MitoTox provides a solution for measuring every known xenobiotic mito-toxic mechanism, from direct effects on OXPHOS to alteration of mitochondrial biogenesis to induction of apoptosis and everything in between, so the results from this study should provide a very comprehensive data set to inform future drug development," Audette added.

MitoSciences is a developer and manufacturer of monoclonal antibodies and
Immunoassays for use in understanding mitochondrial function and metabolism. MitoSciences' products are used by pharmaceutical companies, clinical laboratories, and basic researchers to unlock the role of metabolic enzymes in disease, drug therapy, and drug toxicology.