Apredica LLC, a  contract research organization (CRO) specializing in the preclinical ADME assessment of drug candidates and toxicology assessment, has acquired the intellectual property and all other assets necessary for offering the Cellular Systems Biology and High Content Toxicology services previously offered by Cellumen, Inc.

Apredica, based in Watertown, Massachusetts, near Boston, U.S., was  founded in 2006 and provides preclinical contract testing services for  the evaluation and optimization of the ADMET and pharmacokinetic  properties of drug candidates early in the drug discovery process.

Since its founding, Apredica has grown rapidly. Its 2009 annual  growth rate was 86%. Apredica has 173 customers, mostly in the U.S., but including customers from Europe, East Asia, South Asia, Africa,  South America, and Australia. In 2009, 81% of Apredica’s revenues  came from repeat customers, while Apredica acquired 56 new customers.

All of Apredica’s scientists have more than 10 years’ drug-discovery  experience and 80% of them have Ph.D.s.

Cellumen is the inventor of the Cellular Systems Biology (CSBT)  approach to in vitro discovery and toxicology. CSB analyzes the  system’s response of cell and organ models to drug treatments. This  research has led to the creation of Cellumen’s Intellectual Property for next-generation reagents and multiplexed assays using the High  Content Screening (HCS) technology platform. CSBT is an extensively validated approach that has been co-developed by Cellumen with external pharmaceutical and government partners.

The acquisition of Cellumen’s assets and commercial offering  significantly strengthens Apredica’s existing High Content Toxicology  offerings.

Dr. Katya Tsaioun, Chief Executive Officer of Apredica, said: “I am looking forward to leading the company’s scientific growth into the in vitro toxicology market, where rapid scientific advances are now being made by pioneers in the field such as Cellumen. Such technologies simultaneously improve our ability to detect mechanisms  of human toxicity, reduce the time and cost of developing safe and  efficacious drugs, and pave the way towards developing toxicology models that are more predictive of human biology than currently available models. As human-biology-based models improve, they will reduce and ultimately replace animal toxicology models.”