Simulations Plus, Inc. (Nasdaq: SLP), the leading provider of modeling and simulation solutions for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, chemicals, and consumer goods industries, today announced that it has entered into a one-year funded research collaboration with a large European consortium to further develop and validate the mechanistic Transdermal Compartmental Absorption and Transit (TCAT™) model in GastroPlus™.

Dr. Viera Lukacova , director of simulation sciences, said: “We are very pleased to have the opportunity to work with the diverse membership of this large European consortium to enhance the GastroPlus TCAT model in support of alternative approaches to animal testing. The model is already being utilized heavily within pharmaceutical companies to support transdermal product development activities. This project will contribute substantially to improvements in the program, specifically directed toward the predictions of local exposure within the skin layer following topical administration of various chemicals. We expect the developments under this agreement will aid companies and regulatory agencies as they strive to implement an animal-free chemical safety assessment program.”

John DiBella , Lancaster division president, added: “The consortium rigorously evaluated GastroPlus and several other commercial/academic dermal models on a number of criteria, including prediction accuracy using blinded data, and the results presented at the largest toxicology conference in March had GastroPlus ranked at the top. The outcomes from this collaboration will be integrated into the next versions of GastroPlus and made available to clients as an optional add-on module, which should help us further penetrate into safety research and risk assessment areas. We look forward to leveraging the experiences, expertise, and knowledge base of the consortium as we collaborate on the next-generation dermal absorption modeling platform.”