THE CARDIAC SAFETY CHALLENGE
Cardiovascular toxicity accounts for approximately 45% of post-market drug withdrawals. Traditional hERG channel assays miss many cardiotoxic compounds. Human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes and cardiac organoids now enable comprehensive assessment of drug effects on human heart tissue including contractility, electrophysiology, and structural toxicity.
KEY TECHNOLOGIES
iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes provide human-relevant models for drug screening. They express cardiac ion channels and demonstrate beating, enabling assessment of pro-arrhythmic risk and contractile effects.
Self-organizing cardiac organoids recapitulate heart chamber formation and contain multiple cardiac cell types. They enable study of structural cardiotoxicity and developmental effects.
Heart-chips incorporate mechanical stretching to simulate cardiac workload. Valo Health acquired TARA Biosystems to integrate their beating heart-chip technology into drug discovery.
The Comprehensive in vitro Proarrhythmia Assay (CiPA) initiative provides a regulatory-accepted framework for using human iPSC-cardiomyocytes in cardiac safety assessment.
KEY PROVIDERS
Valo Health
TARA heart-chip acquisition
FUJIFILM CDI
iCell Cardiomyocytes
Dassault
Living Heart Project