Elsevier developing risk calculator for DDIs ‘aligned with pharma’s needs and challenges’
Elsevier’s PharmaPendium team is working with Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly and Company, Pierre Fabre, Sanofi, and Servier, among others, to develop an updated drug-drug interaction risk calculator (DDIRC).
According to the information analytics company, the calculator will help improve patient safety and outcomes in addition to reducing risk during the drug development process.
Olivier Barberan, director of translational medicine solutions at Elsevier, said the companies have committed to working with Elsevier for two years to provide input on the ways in which they are using the calculator, how they would like to visualize data, in addition to feedback about other capabilities that should be included.
“Working with this wide range of pharma partners allows us to develop new capabilities that support better DDI risk assessment in a way that is aligned with pharma’s needs and challenges,” Barberan told us.
The calculator uses information from scientific literature and filings from public regulatory agencies – including the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) – to predict metabolic drug-drug interactions (DDI) between drugs in development and those currently on the market.
“It helps to establish the risks of potential interactions for multiple drugs simultaneously, providing a full risk profile against marketed drugs,” he added. “It will deliver accurate, shareable, and actionable insights so researchers can be confident that the drug in development is safe and effective when interacting with potentially hundreds of other drugs—an increasingly difficult task.”
Several factors have led to an increase in adverse drug reactions (ADRs) Barberan said, “however, the most significant is due to the aging populations across the world, and the increases in prescription use.”
According to the company, 9% of Americans over age 55 currently take ten or more drugs, “which greatly increases the likelihood of DDIs and experiencing ADRs,” he explained.
The FDA estimates that more than 106,000 people die annually due to ADRs, costing the medical care system an estimated $200bn per year. ADRs are responsible for nearly 197,000 deaths every year in Europe.
Phase one of the update, to be complete in early 2020, will include new workflows and data visualization methods, as well as the ability to integrate proprietary drug or patient data libraries.
The final version will be released in early 2021 and will include a model for predicting transporter-based DDIs, as well as other improvements.
