Icagen Launches Industry's Most Comprehensive Research Platform And Services For Sodium Channel Drug Discovery

New Research Describing Development of Nav1.9-expressing Cell Lines to be Presented at Society for Neuroscience 2015 Meeting and Upcoming Webinar

Pharmaceutical researchers seeking to discover drug candidates against challenging sodium channel targets can now access the industry’s largest and most advanced collection of sodium channel cell lines and assays through Icagen’s discovery services. Icagen, Inc., a provider of scientific expertise and comprehensive tools for ion channel and transporter drug discovery and development, formally launched access to its sodium channel platform, a sophisticated portfolio of cell lines, reagents and assays, led by a scientific team with more than 20 years of ion channel drug discovery expertise. Clients can access existing resources within the portfolio or work with Icagen experts to create custom sodium channel cell lines and assays.

“Voltage-gated sodium channels, or Nav channels, are expressed in a variety of tissue types including the central and peripheral nervous systems, cardiac and skeletal muscle, and sensory neurons, and are associated with a variety of disease indications, as well as pain. As such, they are an important focus for much of today’s drug discovery research,” said Neil Castle, Director of Biology at Icagen, Inc. “Icagen scientists, in collaboration with their pharma partners, identified and developed the first selective small molecule inhibitors of Nav1.7 and Nav1.8 and more recently developed the capability to prosecute Nav1.9, a historically challenging pain target. We are now offering the opportunity for others within the pharmaceutical industry to benefit from our expertise in this field, as well as access our full range of Nav research tools for their own drug discovery and development efforts.”

Icagen has assembled the most extensive collection of cell lines stably expressing functional Nav Channels, including human Nav1.1 – Nav1.9, species orthologs (human, cynomologous monkey, marmoset, pig, dog, rat, mouse), distinct disease-related or drug binding site Nav channel mutants, complemented by a broad set of validated functional fluorescence, flux and electrophysiological assays. The Company offers services based on these assays from high-throughput screening (HTS) and selectivity to detailed biophysical and pharmacological analysis. This unmatched portfolio of tools enables Icagen scientists to conduct high-throughput screening of >500K compound libraries, evaluate Nav channel potency and subtype selectivity, and determine species ortholog activity. In addition, Icagen continues to help clients assess mechanism-of-action or site-of-action for candidate molecules and conduct detailed biophysical and pharmacological analyses.

Icagen to Present Research on Properties of Nav1.9 Cell Lines at Society for Neuroscience 2015
Icagen scientists will present research on the development and characterization of Icagen’s Nav1.9 Cell Lines in a poster session atNeuroscience 2015, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, being held in Chicago, IL from October 17 -18. The results show that stable expression of Nav1.9 in HEK cells is possible, and that the resulting cell line recapitulates the properties of native Nav1.9 currents in sensory neurons. Gain of function mutations of the sensory neuron-expressed Nav1.9 channel are associated with either complete insensitivity or hypersensitivity to pain, making such cells an important new resource for drug discovery research.

Poster Title: “Biophysical and Pharmacological Properties of Human Nav1.9 Stably Expressed in HEK293 Cells”
Session and Poster Number: 035 and #B31
Date/Time: Oct 17, 2015 1:00-5:00 pm
Location: McCormick Place, Hall A

Learn More about Icagen’s Sodium Channel Capabilities: Upcoming Webinar, October 7, 2015
Those interested in learning more about Icagen’s sodium channel portfolio and its application to specific drug discovery problems are invited to attend the company’s webinar, “Voltage Dependent Sodium Channel Drug Discovery Screening, Lead Optimization, and Candidate Selection Using Icagen’s Integrated Service Platform,” on October 7, 2015 from 11:00 am - 12:00 pm Eastern.

For more information, visit http://www.icagen.com/resources/webinars/detail/1088/voltage-dependent-sodium-channel-drug-discovery-screening.

In a discussion led by Doug Krafte, Ph.D., Icagen Chief Scientific Officer, and Neil Castle, Ph.D., Icagen Director of Biology, attendees will learn about:

• The breadth and application of the Icagen Nav channel portfolio
• Screening and selectivity profiling results for multiple Nav channels
• Identifying Nav channel compound binding sites
• How to collaborate with Icagen
• The benefits of outsourcing Ion Channel discovery

About Icagen, Inc.
Icagen partners with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to offer industry-leading scientific expertise and comprehensive access to technologies for ion channel and transporter drug discovery and development. With over 20 years of leadership in the ion channel field, the Icagen team offers an extensive track record of success in advancing molecules from drug discovery to clinical development across multiple therapeutic areas and ion channel classes. Icagen’s growing tool box comprises a broad range of cell lines and technologies for ion channel and transporter research, capped by the label-free XRpro® platform. XRpro® technology, based on X-ray fluorescence, is a novel method that enables high throughput assessment of ion channels and transporters, including challenging systems with high therapeutic interest. For more information, visit www.icagen.com.