AstraZeneca selects ToxWix for drug safety prediction

CambridgeCell Networks has reported that AstraZeneca has selected ToxWiz software for use in the prediction of pathological effects of compounds used for the treatment of liver conditions.

ToxWiz is being used in Sweden by scientists at AstraZeneca to search computer models of over 500 annotated pathways.

Each of these pathways connects to a database encompassing 800,000 abstracts with keyword searching to enable the company to ascertain the relationship between specific proteins or pathways and adverse effects.

Scott Boyer, head of computational toxicology at AstraZeneca, said: “We chose ToxWiz because it is one of the few software packages allowing integration of a range of complex data from a toxicology viewpoint.”

He added that the company uses a number of “text-mining tools” for the manual search of data and that ToxWiz will allow the company to automate some of this work, in addition to facilitating other types of task.

Last September, AstraZeneca announced the opening of two scientific laboratories at Alderly Park, Macclesfield in the UK.

The company noted that it had created over 550 new science-related jobs in the UK in the past seven years, with the opening of the ?60 million facilities being the largest investment in the country made by the company.