Drug-induced toxicity is one of the major reasons for discontinuation of drug development projects or even drug withdrawals. Terminating a drug development project due to toxicity in later phases is expensive and to avoid late-phase project failures, several in vitro toxicology screening tests can be conducted already in the drug discovery phase.

Our third e-book in the series introduces readers to the most common forms of toxicity encountered in drug discovery and development, such as, hepatotoxicity, cardiotoxicity and genotoxicity, and what screening tests can be used for each type. These tests include cell viability & cell death assays for cytotoxicity, hERG Predictor assay for cardiotoxicity and AMES assay and micronucleus test for genotoxicity. The book also gives a brief overview of other forms of toxicity; steatosis, phospholipidosis and cholestasis. In addition, the book also takes a glance at exploratory toxicity models which have been developed to address the limitations faced with traditional in vitro assays.