It makes no difference how effective a new drug candidate is in the fight against cancer or other deadly disease. It also makes no difference how much effort, time, or money has gone into the development and evaluation of such a promising drug. It doesn’t even matter how many lives can be saved by its use. In fact, despite their efficacy, most of these drugs have a very good chance of simply being shelved. It happens all the time, resulting in the loss of potentially life-saving therapies, along with countless millions of dollars in wasted research.

These critically needed drugs are oftentimes lost due to toxicity issues that go undiscovered until late in the development process, after much of the work has been done and most of the money has been spent. For example, cardiotoxicity alone has been implicated in nearly 30% of drug withdrawals. Currently, such toxicity is frequently uncovered late in the game, during human clinical trials, or sometimes even after FDA approval. The human and financial toll of such late withdrawals is enormous, but could be avoided given a more efficient and accurate way of testing drugs earlier in development.

VistaGen Therapeutics has discovered a powerful new approach to toxicity testing that has been shown to be far superior to animal tests or other traditional early testing methods. The concept is based upon the use of human pluripotent stem cells that can be engineered to effectively duplicate the human cellular environment, allowing tests of unmatched precision. Potential toxicity is discovered early and relatively inexpensively, allowing non-toxic drug variations to be developed. In addition, previous drug candidates, shelved for toxicity reasons, can now be cost effectively reconsidered for potential variants, opening the door to new life-saving drugs and all of the associated profits.

For additional information, visit the company’s website at www.VistaGen.com

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