Improved in vitro renal tubular drug transport modelling to meet regulatory & development cost challenges

The proximal tubule is key due to its role in the excretion and reabsorption of many xenobiotic compounds. Due to the high costs associated with drug discovery and the clinical demand for effective drugs, in vitro human cell-based kidney models using renal proximal tubule epithelia are becoming popular tools for early-stage testing.

Director of ADMET technology, Dr Colin Brown, has written an article for the latest version European Pharmaceutical Review. In this article he describes why it is important that in vitro models of renal drug transport are physiologically representative of the human kidney and their importance in modelling nephrotoxicity and drug-to-drug interactions (DDI) and predicting drug-induced kidney injury (DIKI) in the later stages of drug development and trial.