From research available to us today, we know that there are many environmental chemicals that carry the potential to greatly impact the endocrine system. These are known as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which are compounds that can alter drug and xenobiotic metabolic processes and interfere with the production, release, metabolism, and elimination of naturally occurring hormones.

Liver toxicity is a major cause of drug failure in clinical trials and often leads to the complete market withdrawal of many approved drugs today. Due to inherent differences in drug metabolism between species, it’s also difficult to extrapolate results obtained from preclinical animal models for human use. But new research on upcyte^® hepatocytes suggests that they may be an effective solution for reducing attrition due to metabolism-mediated toxicity and the key to improving the safety of new drug candidates.

The drug discovery process is time-consuming, costly, and risky. Here is a quick look at some of the risks and challenges associated with drug discovery, as well as solutions that can be utilized to streamline the process to increase return-on-investment and mitigate risk.