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The IMI eTOX Project<br />

Efforts to Develop In Silico Tools to Predict<br />

In Vivo Toxicity<br />

Thomas Steger-Hartmann<br />

Investigational Toxicology<br />

Bayer Healthcare<br />

Müllerstraße 178<br />

D-13353 Berlin, Germany<br />

thomas.steger-hartmann@bayer.com<br />

Website: etoxproject.eu<br />

Background<br />

The eTOX project was proposed under the first call of the Innovative Medicines Initiative<br />

(IMI; imi.europa.eu) under the title: ‘Integrating bioinformatics and chemoinformatics<br />

approaches for the development of expert systems allowing the in silico prediction of<br />

toxicities’.<br />

IMI is Europe’s largest public-private initiative aiming to speed up the development of<br />

better and safer medicines for patients. IMI supports collaborative research projects and<br />

builds networks of industrial and academic experts in order to boost pharmaceutical<br />

innovation in Europe. IMI is a joint undertaking between the European Union and the<br />

pharmaceutical industry association EFPIA. IMI supports research projects in the areas<br />

of safety and efficacy, knowledge management and education and training. Under the<br />

pillar ‘safety’, eTOX was proposed because the need for improved toxicological databases<br />

and prediction tools was identified a bottleneck during early drug development.<br />

During these phases, in vivo studies are often unveiling side effects that presently cannot<br />

be predicted from the chemistry. However, mechanisms such as cross-target activation<br />

or inhibition, or straight chemistry-linked toxicities are amenable to prediction. Early<br />

in silico prediction of such cases would increase the quality of drug candidates and<br />

ensure a lower attrition rate before and during the first GLP animal studies. This could<br />

also reduce the number of animals (<strong>3R</strong>s) used in preclinical studies necessary to select<br />

drug.<br />

Therefore, the eTOX project aims to build a toxicology database relevant to pharmaceutical<br />

development and to elaborate innovative methodological strategies and novel software<br />

tools to better predict the toxicological profiles of new chemical entities in early stages<br />

of the drug development pipeline based on existing in vivo study results. This is planned<br />

226<br />

AXLR8-2 WORKSHOP REPORT<br />

Progress Report 2011 & AXLR8-2 Workshop Report

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