UNDERSTANDING YOUR DRUG TARGETS
IN AN EARLY PHASE OF DRUG DEVELOPMENT FOR NEW THERAPEUTICS
TNO combines several of its proven technologies to identify and assess new drug targets, or biomarkers
We can help you to better understand your target in an early phase of drug development. By combining our diverse capabilities, we offer services that extract, integrate and interprets data for your target and translate this into valuable information for decision making.
With a track record in target safety assessment for many years, we do offer additional services in the area of Mechanism Driven Drug Discovery (MD3) and Biomarker Identification.
In addition, we offer tailor-made solutions and have built a target intelligence platform (TargetTri) to be used as an in-house tool for more efficient target safety assessments, or substantiate early ideation around new drug targets.
Target Safety Assessment(TSA)
TSA combines cheminformatics, network biology, text mining and expert opinion to create a comprehensive report on the expected safety profile of a target.
Such data can then be used in informed decision making around targets, ranking targets, de-risking strategies and/or designing investigative studies.
Our TSA portfolio consist of different products: standard, full or extensive TSAs. Our TSAs are fully modular and can be adjusted to your specific needs.
TARGET SAFETY ASSESSMENT(TSA); WORKFLOW
TargetTri: Web-based Target Intelligence platform (Available as Subscription service)
TargetTri is a web-based Target Intelligence platform that allows the user to collect biomedical data regarding candidate drug targets.
TargetTri efficiently extracts relevant data for drug targets from multiple sources, including databases, in-house curated data and literature abstracts.
The core of the system is our proprietary text mining algorithm, which identifies correlations in literature abstracts between the target of interest and a full (safety) ontology per organ.
Results are visualized in an intuitive manner, enabling easy browsing and validation of the data (source data is directly accessible).
All data in TargetTri is pre-processed, so results are available and accessible on the fly for any drug target of interest.
As a result TargetTri saves significant time (and resources) in finding and ranking the relevant data for the target of interest.
Since data is more complete than manual searches and the platform integrates and connects data, TargetTri can reveal new insights around targets otherwise missed by other approaches.
With a first application in safety (to get a comprehensive toxicity profile for your drug target),
TargetTri can now be used for several applications in early drug discovery, including target validation (based on data), target identification (in relation to disease) and early hypothesis generation around targets..
If you are interested in using TargetTri in your own environment, please feel free to contact us.
We offer an Online demo and a 3-weeks free trial.
Mechanism Driven Drug Discovery (MD3)
TNO combines several of its proven technologies（in silico, in vitro, in vivo) to identify new drug targets. Our approach makes it possible:
● to search unexplored areas of biology and select new targets in unknown pathways
● to better understand the molecular mechanism of disease and thereby select safer and more clinically relevant targets
● A first application of MD3 is ongoing for MASH/liver fibrosis, where we have identified 3 targets.
We are looking for pharmaceutical partners to further validate these targets and/or to apply MD3 in other therapeutic domains.
● Publication: Integrating text mining with network models for successful target identification: in vitro validation in MASH-induced liver fibrosis. (Frontiers in Pharmacology, Sep-2024)
The MD3 platform technologies/assets include:
● Well established data- and text-mining technologies (TargetTri)
● Systems biology and AI for the definition of molecular networks related to disease
● Access to and analysis of human samples and preclinical gene expression data sets
● In vitro cell technologies
● Disease knowledge/target evaluation (TSA)
● TNO’s knowledge of preclinical research (obtained in collaborations with Pharma/biotech), we act as a partner
Target Biomarkers Identification (TBI)
TNO has developed a biomarker workflow to identify biomarkers related to your target of interest. Those biomarkers can be related to safety, efficacy, or other biological phenomena. The identified biomarkers can be monitored during your preclinical and clinical development to assess the target’s effect on safety/efficacy.
The starting point of the Target Biomarker Identification workflow is the drug target that is modulated by the intervention. Applying a systems biology integration approach that mainly uses database information results in candidate biomarkers, which we will prioritize based on additional data (for example if the biomarker can be measured in plasma). The Biomarker Identification assessment can either be based on in silico prediction (on publicly available data) or on data derived in your (pre)clinical studies.
Technical info download
● Target Safety Assessment (Brochure)
● TargetTri: Safety Assessment and De-risking of Novel Drug Targets, (Poster at ACT 2019)
● TargetTri: A Toxicity Based Triaging System for Novel Drug Targets (Poster at SPS 2017)
● Holistic Approach to the Safety Assessment of Exploratory Drug Targets (Poster at EuroTox 2015)
● Identification and Verification of Functional Biomarkers for Early Detection of NASH-induced Fibrosis.(Poster at Keystone 2019)
● A Discovery and Evaluation Workflow to Identify Novel Targets for NASH-induced Liver Fibrosis (Poster at Discovery on Target 2019)
