Biovista
Encyclopedia
Biovista Inc. is a private drug development services company based in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. Biovista's core business activities include Drug repositioning
and drug de-risking as well as disease cohort analysis, adverse event prediction and clinical hold analysis services. Biovista is also applying its technology platform to develop its own drug repositioning
programs in the areas of CNS, diabetes/obesity, eye disorders, and oncology.
The company derisks and repositions drugs using multidimensional profiles of pharmacologically relevant entities such as gene
s, disease
s, drug
s, pathways and cell types, to identify and rank potential adverse event
s and new indications
for drugs in development
, on the market, or generics
.
Biovista is also creating software-based tools and services for Reagent companies, researchers in the Life sciences
and the consumer & patient health areas.
Biovista's technology platform is based on the analysis and integration of Biomedical information available in the scientific literature
using Biomedical text mining
techniques. Pharmacologically-relevant areas include drug toxicity, drug mode of action
, disease mechanisms and biological system interactions
.
Biovista Inc.’s technology platform integrates literature-based discovery
algorithms with Semantic search
technologies to identify and rank potential solutions to a variety of drug development
related problems such as predicting the adverse events of compounds, identifying suitable biomarkers for diseases and discovering new indications for existing drugs or drug combinations.
Biovista’s correlation engine scans potential interactions between pharmacologically relevant entities resulting in a correlation database. The database itself is based on a proprietary design that combines the Relational database management system
(RDBMS) model with the Object-Oriented
model allowing researchers to obtain preliminary answers in weeks rather than years.
In January 2010, Biovista announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) has licensed its technology platform to help analyze, identify, and better understand the way certain drugs can cause harmful side effects. Since the beginning of 2009, Biovista has started its own drug development
programs based on repositioned compounds in CNS diseases, such as Multiple sclerosis
and Epilepsy
.
Biovista is an active participant of European Union
co-funded R&D projects spanning areas such as post-genomic clinical trials research (ACGT project), mutant mouse models for the investigation of Human Immunological Disease (MUGEN project), semantic annotation and ontology driven text mining (PARMENIDES project) and systematic knowledge discovery (ESPERONTO Project).
Drug repositioning
Drug repositioning is the application of known drugs and compounds to new indications .- Drug repositioning :...
and drug de-risking as well as disease cohort analysis, adverse event prediction and clinical hold analysis services. Biovista is also applying its technology platform to develop its own drug repositioning
Drug repositioning
Drug repositioning is the application of known drugs and compounds to new indications .- Drug repositioning :...
programs in the areas of CNS, diabetes/obesity, eye disorders, and oncology.
The company derisks and repositions drugs using multidimensional profiles of pharmacologically relevant entities such as gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
s, disease
Disease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
s, drug
Drug
A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage.In pharmacology, a...
s, pathways and cell types, to identify and rank potential adverse event
Adverse event
An adverse event is any adverse change in health or side effect that occurs in a person who participates in a clinical trial while the patient is receiving the treatment or within a previously specified period of time after the treatment has been completed.AEs in patients participating in...
s and new indications
Disease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
for drugs in development
Investigational New Drug
The United States Food and Drug Administration's Investigational New Drug program is the means by which a pharmaceutical company obtains permission to ship an experimental drug across state lines before a marketing application for the drug has been approved...
, on the market, or generics
Generic drug
A generic drug is a drug defined as "a drug product that is comparable to brand/reference listed drug product in dosage form, strength, route of administration, quality and performance characteristics, and intended use." It has also been defined as a term referring to any drug marketed under its...
.
Biovista is also creating software-based tools and services for Reagent companies, researchers in the Life sciences
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
and the consumer & patient health areas.
Biovista's technology platform is based on the analysis and integration of Biomedical information available in the scientific literature
Scientific literature
Scientific literature comprises scientific publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences, and within a scientific field is often abbreviated as the literature. Academic publishing is the process of placing the results of one's research into the...
using Biomedical text mining
Biomedical text mining
Biomedical text mining refers to text mining applied to texts and literature of the biomedical and molecular biology domain...
techniques. Pharmacologically-relevant areas include drug toxicity, drug mode of action
Mechanism of action
In pharmacology, the term mechanism of action refers to the specific biochemical interaction through which a drug substance produces its pharmacological effect...
, disease mechanisms and biological system interactions
Protein interactions
Proteins can interact with many types of molecules. Such interactions are related to their function and are therefore an object of study in molecular biology, and of computational methods of prediction in bioinformatics.Protein interactions can be classified as:...
.
Biovista Inc.’s technology platform integrates literature-based discovery
Literature-based discovery
Literature-based discovery refers to the use of papers and other academic publications to find new relationships between existing knowledge . The technique was pioneered by Don R...
algorithms with Semantic search
Semantic search
Semantic search seeks to improve search accuracy by understanding searcher intent and the contextual meaning of terms as they appear in the searchable dataspace, whether on the Web or within a closed system, to generate more relevant results. Author Seth Grimes lists "11 approaches that join...
technologies to identify and rank potential solutions to a variety of drug development
Drug development
Drug development is a blanket term used to define the process of bringing a new drug to the market once a lead compound has been identified through the process of drug discovery...
related problems such as predicting the adverse events of compounds, identifying suitable biomarkers for diseases and discovering new indications for existing drugs or drug combinations.
Biovista’s correlation engine scans potential interactions between pharmacologically relevant entities resulting in a correlation database. The database itself is based on a proprietary design that combines the Relational database management system
Relational database management system
A relational database management system is a database management system that is based on the relational model as introduced by E. F. Codd. Most popular databases currently in use are based on the relational database model....
(RDBMS) model with the Object-Oriented
Object-oriented programming
Object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm using "objects" – data structures consisting of data fields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as data abstraction,...
model allowing researchers to obtain preliminary answers in weeks rather than years.
In January 2010, Biovista announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Food and Drug Administration
The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...
(FDA) has licensed its technology platform to help analyze, identify, and better understand the way certain drugs can cause harmful side effects. Since the beginning of 2009, Biovista has started its own drug development
Drug development
Drug development is a blanket term used to define the process of bringing a new drug to the market once a lead compound has been identified through the process of drug discovery...
programs based on repositioned compounds in CNS diseases, such as Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
and Epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
.
Biovista is an active participant of European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
co-funded R&D projects spanning areas such as post-genomic clinical trials research (ACGT project), mutant mouse models for the investigation of Human Immunological Disease (MUGEN project), semantic annotation and ontology driven text mining (PARMENIDES project) and systematic knowledge discovery (ESPERONTO Project).
External links
- Biovista Inc. http://www.biovista.com
- European Medicines Agency (EMEA) http://www.emea.europa.eu
- HUM-MOLGEN Registry of biomedical companies http://www.hum-molgen.org/companies/profile.php3/204
- Pharmalicensing Registry of biomedical companies http://pharmalicensing.com/public/companies/view/20350/biovista-inc