CNS-CRO adds neurological animal models from UPEI

Adding UPEI developed technologies strengthens CNS-CRO’s preclinical development and testing capabilities for drugs to treat stroke, epilepsy and schizophrenia. Expanding in this area is part of CNS-CRO’s efforts to use more clinically-relevant animal models of human disease.

“Together with our existing models, the CNS-CRO suite of leading edge drug​ discovery tools clearly differentiates the CNS-CRO offering from that of existing CRO service providers​”, said Ken Cawkell, CEO of Neurodyn, the parent company of CNS-CRO.

UPEI has licensed to Canada-based CNS-CRO four pieces of medical technology it developed to improve preclinical testing of treatments for stroke, epilepsy and schizophrenia. Development of the technology is part of a decade of research by three faculties across UPEI.

CNS-CRO now possesses in vivo ​models for: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis- Parkinsonism dementia complex of the western Pacific (ALS-PDC); epilepsy; focal and global stroke; and schizophrenia.

Using these models gives a more accurate idea of how a treatment will perform in clinical trials, says CNS-CRO. Improving the predictive ability of animal models could help biopharm abandon compounds with a low likelihood of success earlier in development, saving time and money.

CNS-CRO says its models make more accurate predictions because they recreate the disease process from its earliest onset through the cascade of events which causes the progressive loss of central nervous tissue.