Working as one

NGP. What do you see as the greatest challenge that the drug discovery and lead validation research is currently facing?

JH. The greatest challenges are research costs and streamlining. It is inevitable that pharmaceutical industry must cut research costs, and for that purpose, companies like Pharmatest will be very welcome.

NGP. What is the profile of a typical customer of Pharmatest?

JH. Our typical customers are pharmaceutical companies developing drugs for bone diseases, such as osteoporosis and cancer-induced bone disease. Our services are useful for companies of any size or type, and range from single compound testing to sets of various services for testing multiple compounds.

We can provide tailor-made solutions and contract model development. If a customer wants a certain model that we don’t have, we can develop it in collaboration with the customer.

NGP. What advantages can a preclinical pharmacodynamic CRO like Pharmatest offer to its customers?

JH. The biggest advantage is that we provide fast and cost effective strategies with high scientific expertise. Our research models are always up to date according to most recent scientific know-how so the customer can be confident that everything is done according to the most recent technology available.

NGP. How does this differ then with some companies who perform preclinical research in collaboration with academic groups?

JH. Many pharmaceutical companies have been collaborating with academic research groups. I assume this has been happening because there have not been enough CROs like Pharmatest around. The interests of the pharmaceutical industry and those of academic research are not always the same, which may create problems in academic collaboration. It is not the primary function of academic research to act as an R&D unit for pharmaceutical industry, by for example screening the effects of sets of compound in an established disease model. Academic research would be better suited for basic research such as developing new disease models, studying mechanisms of actions of new drugs, and finding new drug targets.

I have a lot of experience working in academic research groups. Pharmatest is more reliable and our services are much higher quality than what is found in academic research. Our studies are performed according to mutually accepted timetables and study protocols according to the quality assurance system and standard operating procedures of Pharmatest. These issues are not always well handled in academic research.

NGP. What can you offer to those customers that have no bone-specific programs?

JH. There are actually many things that we can offer them. Our models can be used for testing undesired side effects on bone for compounds designed for other indications. A good example of such compounds is glucocorticoids that are known to have undesired effects on bone. We can also test shared mechanisms of actions in various diseases, and help filing for additional indications. If someone has a compound for indications that do not involve bone, they can use our services to find out if filing additional indications in the bone field would be relevant.

NGP. You mentioned that there are not a lot of companies around like Pharmatest, which is why pharmaceutical companies are working with academic institutes. Is this going to be a growing field with more companies using services like yours?

JH. That's correct. One of our marketing issues is to make the pharmaceutical industry understand the advantages of using a CRO rather than an academic research collaboration. If someone has been collaborating with academic research instititutions for quite a long time, it is challenging for us to be able to convince them the advantages for changing the strategy.

Dr. Jussi Halleen is one of the founders of Pharmatest and has been the company’s CEO since 1999. Prior to Pharmatest, he was active in academic research in the field of bone biology and still holds an adjunct professorship at the University of Oulu, Finland. His research interests focused on the role of tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRACP) in bone resorption. He has extensive experience in the field of bone biology and has developed the TRACP 5b immunoassays used by Pharmatest.