Discovery Life Sciences (Discovery), the biospecimen and biomarker specialists™, announced that it has acquired In Vitro ADMET Laboratories (IVAL) to add the world’s largest hepatocyte inventory and a world-renowned scientific leader to its growing company. Maryland-based IVAL is an industry-leading provider of physiologically relevant in vitro experimental systems to enhance the efficiency of drug metabolism, toxicology, and pharmacology testing for the pharmaceutical industry.
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Albert P. Li, Ph.D. founded IVAL in 2004 and will join Discovery’s leadership team as Chief Scientific Officer of Pharmacology and Toxicology. Under Dr. Li’s leadership, IVAL has been instrumental in supporting the submissions and eventual approvals of many breakthrough therapies and companion diagnostics. Dr. Li has devoted his career to advancing scientific concepts and technologies to predict human drug properties accurately. He is a pioneer in the isolation, cryopreservation, and culturing of human hepatocytes and the application of human hepatocytes to evaluate drug metabolism, drug-drug interactions, and drug toxicity. Dr. Li will lead Discovery’s future innovations in this area.
Discovery will continue IVAL’s innovative use of human hepatocytes to understand drug effects on the human liver, allowing researchers to select more accurately drug candidates that are the safest and most efficacious for further development while reducing patient risk, clinical trial failure rates, and the associated time and cost of drug development.
IVAL complements Discovery’s existing science-based biospecimen drug and biomarker development expertise. The acquisition marks another advancement in Discovery’s expansion, as the company can now provide researchers with access to the largest hepatocyte inventory in the world and associated leading-edge technologies at scale. Discovery has now completed nine strategic acquisitions in the past three and a half years and invested in expanding its technologies and laboratories to cement its position as the leading provider of research biospecimens and biomarker development services.
“Discovery Life Sciences has an unwavering commitment to innovation and excellence across all of our business units,” said Discovery’s Chief Scientific Officer Shawn Levy, Ph.D. “IVAL supports our mission to continue developing our capabilities to support our clients comprehensively in drug research and development through the expansion of our biospecimen offerings.”