Simulations Plus, Inc. (AMEX: SLP), a leading provider of ADMET absorption simulation and structure-to-property prediction software for pharmaceutical discovery and development, announced that it has released Version 5.0 of its gold standard pharmaceutical research simulation software product, GastroPlusTM, which includes the highly anticipated PBPKPlusTM Module.
Dr. Michael Bolger, director of life sciences and founding scientist of the company, said: “PBPK stands for physiologically based pharmacokinetics – a computer simulation method that enables pharmaceutical research scientists to estimate the concentration of drug in individual human and animal tissues from a particular dose. PBPK simulation is fast becoming an important research tool sought after by pharmaceutical scientists. New developments over the past five years now make it possible to automatically generate estimated input data for running complex PBPK computer simulations. Today, these inputs are sufficiently accurate to provide research scientists with very useful PBPK predictions for their new drug research.”
Dr. Viera Lukacova, senior scientist and product manager for GastroPlus, added: “One of the important milestones in the development of any drug is the first time it is dosed in humans. Scientists need to estimate how much drug should be used for these first doses to achieve meaningful blood concentrations without exceeding safe limits. In the past, an estimate that was within ten to one was often considered adequate. With GastroPlus 5.0, its PBPKPlus Module, and a small amount of test data, scientists can now typically estimate human blood concentrations within two or three to one. In addition to the PBPK capability, we have added a large number of user convenience features to the core GastroPlus program, so that even companies that do not license the PBPKPlus Module will see significant benefits to this new version.”
Ron Creeley, vice president of marketing and sales for Simulations Plus, noted: “This is yet another addition to our expanding product line, following closely on the heels of our recently acquired ClassPharmerTM and ChemTKTM product lines and the recently announced hERG cardiac toxicity model now included in our ADMET PredictorTM product. We’ve been demonstrating beta versions of GastroPlus 5.0 to customers worldwide for over a year, and the level of interest is high. At this point, we have more than 25 companies who have requested evaluation CDs for the PBPK capability, most of whom are already GastroPlus users. All of those companies will be receiving their CDs shortly. An important note is that all of the companies whose multi-year licenses are in their last year are included in this group. PBPKPlus is an additional-cost module, so we expect to see an increase in revenues from PBPKPlus licenses.”