Asterand gains GLP accreditation at UK laboratory

Asterand has gained GLP accreditation at its UK lab, enabling it to support regulatory submissions and furthering its goal of becoming a fully integrated human tissue service provider.

Tissue cross reactivity testing for therapeutic antibodies is the first good laboratory practice (GLP) service offered by Asterand. The contract research organisation (CRO) believes it can use its expertise in this area to differentiate itself from rivals in the GLP preclinical field.

Karen Hildebrandt, marketing communications manager at Asterand, told Outsourcing-Pharma that its initial offering will use its experience of “immunohistochemical studies and ability to source difficult to procure tissues through [its] independent network of collaborators”.

Furthermore, Asterand believes its approach to tissue cross reactivity testing can save clients time and money. The company will achieve this by offering clients a frozen tissue microarray platform for rapid pre-screening of therapeutic antibody candidates before GLP studies.

Asterand plans to add to its range of GLP services in the future. Expanding the range of GLP services offered from the Royston, UK site is a step towards Asterand becoming a ‘one-stop shop’ capable of meeting the changing needs of pharma companies.

Hildebrandt explained that clients have become increasingly interested in Asterand’s ability to perform GLP studies as “the current trend towards consolidation of suppliers within large pharmaceutical companies” has progressed.

BioSeek buy

Last month Asterand expanded its service offering by completing its acquisition of BioSeek. The buy gives it access to BioSeek’s BioMAP system which provides high throughput and high content screening using human primary cells.

This generates a unique signature of human biological response for active compounds. Hildebrandt added that there has been an “extremely positive” response from clients seeking to use the tool to guide lead selection and nomination of candidates for preclinical development.