Testing for developmental toxicity is a crucial part of the early safety testing of novel medicines, chemicals and personal care products. ReproTracker visualises the key events during stem cell differentiations and early embryonic development, thereby allowing reliable assessment of the potential developmental toxicity hazards of new compounds. The assay is built on the technical and scientific background on stem cell differentiation and advanced genome editing and reporter technologies that have been developed by Toxys were previously applied in our ToxTracker assay.
“At Toxys we strongly believe in bringing high quality information to our partners and clients. I strongly believe that the future for human safety assessment is not with simple tests that only provide a yes or no answers, but advanced in vitro models that provide reliable and relevant insight into the mechanism of action of novel chemicals and materials. We are committed to support our partners in understanding their latest compounds and in making the right decisions during R&D of novel products. ReproTracker is the logic next development step in broadening our product portfolio, we combine our expertise that we have developed for ToxTracker to develop an in vitro assay that provides insight into the mode of action in early embryonic development.” – G. Hendriks (CEO Toxys)
Reproductive Toxicology
Previous incidents in the early ‘50s with Softenon, that induced severe malformation in children, emphasised the need to assess whether new products affect reproduction or embryonic development. Today, the regulatory agencies have implemented testing strategies to determine safety of compounds, including developmental toxicity. Currently, development and reproductive toxicity testing (DART) heavily relies on animal testing. The financial and ethical objections as well as the limited predictivity of the animal models for human health risks demands for better DART testing strategies. Toxys aims to apply it’s expertise and technology to develop better animal-free test systems to assess the developmental toxicity properties of novel medicines and chemicals. The financing by RVO allows Toxys to accelerate the development of the ReproTracker assay.