A YORK business which specialises in simulating research conditions has been awarded a £300,000 grant to create a virtual laboratory to reduce animal testing and boost drug development.

SimOmics, a University of York spin-out based at York Science Park, which is backed by the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Hub, has been awarded the six-figured grant from the UK’s innovation agency Innovate UK.

The business is tasked with developing a virtual laboratory to establish the environmental impact of drugs earlier in discovery and development while dramatically reducing both the cost of environmental assessments and the need for animal testing.

Working with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, the University’s Environment Department and Exeter School of Biosciences, SimOmics, sponsored by NC3Rs, is developing a “Virtual Fish EcoToxicology Laboratory" that will mathematically model the exposure, uptake, metabolism and effects of future drugs on different species of fish before the drug is developed.

Regulations require that before authorisation, new active pharmaceutical ingredients must undergo an environmental risk assessment (ERA). The SimOmics “Evidence Bioscience” platform will be the first in the world that can accurately predict the end-to-end journey that drugs will take from the patient’s body into wastewater and river systems, and even predict their effect on fish reproduction and growth.

Bosses believe it may also have the potential to simulate the effect of future drugs on humans.

Professor Jon Timmis, chief executive of SimOmics, said: "Our technology will dramatically de-risk the testing of drugs and their interactions with fish.

"We also see future applications for testing the environmental impact of everything from new pesticides to printing ink.

"Ultimately, we could also model the effect of future drugs on humans to ensure that new treatments are already refined and developed to a much higher standard - before the first clinical trials ever take place."

SimOmics is also part of a consortium that recently secured almost £1 million from the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) to develop a “virtual laboratory” to boost the search for new treatments for leishmaniasis, a tropical disease responsible for an estimated 30,000 deaths a year.

It also recently developed a web-based tool - the “SimOmics Evidence” platform – that will allow drug companies to submit new drug ingredients for ‘virtual drug trials’ to help reduce research and development costs and refine drug development before animal tests and clinical trials.