VivaQuant Inks Collaboration with FDA to Improve Accuracy of Drug Cardiac Safety Assessment

ST. PAUL, Minn., Oct. 16, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- VivaQuant has entered into a five-year collaboration with FDA to research ways to improve cardiac safety assessment of medications. In this research collaboration, VivaQuant's advanced ECG processing tools will be used to derive continuous beat-to-beat measurements of cardiac electrical waves from preclinical and clinical ECG studies. As part of this research, FDA and VivaQuant will study the differences in design, analysis, and reporting between preclinical and clinical ECG studies to identify synergies and opportunities to improve translation of results through the use of common practices.

In addition, continuous beat-to-beat measurements provided by VivaQuant Rhythm Expresstm ECG software will be used to investigate the possible influence of autonomic tone on ECG-based information used to assess cardiac safety. Assessment of cardiac safety is required for nearly all of the medications being developed by the pharmaceutical industry. Changes in how cardiac safety is assessed were implemented by FDA and other global regulators in the early part of the last decade. Since then, not a single drug has been approved with an unexpected risk of torsade de pointes (life-threatening arrhythmias). Although the changes implemented by global regulators were effective at preventing proarrhythmic drugs from reaching the market, these changes may have resulted in lifesaving medications being falsely identified as unsafe. This has not only reduced the number of new lifesaving drugs available to patients but has also driven up the cost of drug development. As a result, the FDA is studying ways to reduce the number of drugs falsely identified as unsafe without compromising the accuracy of identifying drugs that truly are unsafe. VivaQuant is part of that effort. "We are very excited about collaborating with FDA on this initiative to improve drug safety screening", said Dr. Marina Brockway, VivaQuant Chief Technology Officer. "We are hopeful that this research will lead to more safe and effective medications reaching patients."

About VivaQuant
VivaQuant has developed patented technology for detection of arrhythmias as well as accurate and efficient extraction and measurement of information from ECGs that can be used to gauge cardiac safety of medications. VivaQuant employs its proprietary noise removal and machine learning technology to provide ECG data analysis services for assessing the safety and efficacy of drugs and medical devices. In addition to providing ECG analysis services, it is developing an advanced system that includes a small wearable device for monitoring heart rhythm in patients suffering from cardiac arrhythmias. VivaQuant's Multi-Domain Signal Processing (MDSPTM) technology has been shown to remove 95% of noise from ambulatory ECGs while preserving fidelity, significantly reduce analysis and reporting labor, and greatly improve the accuracy of information extracted for diagnostic and cardiac safety purposes. The MDSP algorithm is also extremely power efficient, rendering it suitable for devices where long battery life is important.

SOURCE VivaQuant, Inc.