Target Safety Assessment (TSA) review: a knowledge-based approach in decreasing target-related drug attrition rates

Revisions of past drug discovery programs have identified safety issues as the most important reason for project failure. Almost a quarter of safety closures were target-related during preclinical testing, while this number rose to nearly fifty percent in a clinical setting.

A comprehensive target safety assessment (TSA) is fundamental early in the drug discovery process to avoid costly late-stage drug failures. TSA review gives a broader picture of the desired on-target effect and safety-related issues associated with target modulation. It predicts potential target liabilities, which further aids in monitoring safety risks identified through the preclinical and clinical stages of development. In this session, we will present key steps in generating BiologicsHub TSA assessments and the resources we are using.

Presenters: 

Branka Rakic, PhD

Branka is a senior scientific leader and entrepreneur with a strong scientific background and solid business competence. Having been in a toxicology and data management field for almost a decade, she worked on numerous projects aiding pharmaceutical drug discovery. At BiologicsHub, Branka is engaged in designing and planning diverse projects, mainly in safety assessment, literature curation, and knowledgebase development. She got her Ph.D. in molecular biology at the University of Vienna, Austria.

Violeta Veljovic, MScPharm

Violeta is a Co-founder and holds a Business Manager position at BiologicsHub, a leading Contract Research Organization in literature-based risk assessment that provides its services to pharmaceutical and biotech companies. In the last ten years, she held managerial positions in small biotech companies that developed databases and pathway analyses tools for toxicology. By training, Violeta is a pharmacist with a master's degree obtained at the University of Belgrade, Serbia.