Xceleron and Servier accord on drug development

UK-based Xceleron, the bioanalytical contract research organizaion which has pioneered human Phase 0 microdose studies, and French independent drugmaker Laboratoire Servier, have signed a 12-month rolling collaborative agreement. This covers the provision by Xceleron of accelerator mass spectrometry services to assist Servier in taking candidate drugs into humans much earlier than conventional Phase I studies.

This deal is claimed by Xceleron to be the first of its kind whereby a pharmaceutical company is altering its traditional discovery/development processes to accommodate early human studies as part of the drug candidate selection processes.

Colin Garner, the UK firm's chief executive, "this collaborative Agreement is the result of Servier and Xceleron working together for a number of years to use the AMS technology to accelerate drug development. It shows the far-sightedness of Servier in introducing novel enabling technologies to change their paradigm of drug development."