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 new funded collaboration with a large pharmaceutical company to modify the mechanistic oral absorption (ACAT™) model in GastroPlus® to support gastrointestinal disease research.

“What an exciting opportunity we have to participate in a collaboration which will enhance and advance understanding of local drug disposition in the gut tissue to assist with the development of new therapies for gastrointestinal diseases,” said Viera Lukacova, director of Simulation Sciences for Simulations Plus. “Working closely with our partner’s cross-functional team of DMPK, biopharmaceutics, and clinical pharmacology scientists, we intend to incorporate ground-breaking scientific approaches and validate the new methods using one-of-a-kind data collected by our partner.”

John DiBella, Lancaster division president for Simulations Plus, added: “Pharmaceutical companies have independently confirmed the GastroPlus physiologically based biopharmaceutics (PBBM) / physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) platform as the most accurate commercial tool available for predicting drug absorption following oral administration in animals and humans. This collaboration will look to build upon our 20-year foundation to improve the accuracy of drug concentrations in gut tissue within a supported, validated software program. Similar to other collaborations that funded the development of new functionality, Simulations Plus maintains the right to license this to all clients, and we aim to have the first version available in 2020. We welcome and invite future collaborations to drive advances to modeling and simulation sciences.”