The Basque biocompany Biobide was invited to be one of the speakers at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Drug Information Association (DIA), held in San Diego (USA) between 21 and 25 June last. In this setting, the R&D Management Director of the firm, Arantza Muriana, gave a presentation on zebrafish cardiotoxicity screening in an automated platform with high reproducibility and good correlation with results observed in humans.

The DIA is a professional association with more than 18,000 members worldwide who are involved in the discovery, development, regulation, surveillance, or marketing of pharmaceuticals or related products. Its Annual Meeting is one of the biopharmaceutical industry's largest global, multidisciplinary events. Every year, the DIA Annual Meeting brings together researchers, company representatives and academics linked to the biopharmaceutical sector.

Biobide is a pioneering company in the field of specialised biotechnology in the High Throughput Screening of new drugs, whose goal is to introduce a different service-screening concept into the market by using the zebrafish as a model organism. In order to do this, the company from Gipuzkoa has modern facilities, including a zebrafish fish tank housing up to 150,000 adult zebrafish.

Biobide recently obtained Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) certification that enables it to perform three types of tests: in vivo toxicity, safety pharmacology and pharmacodynamics. Thanks to this certification, this biocompany will be able to conduct its toxicity and effectiveness studies on the zebrafish as a model organism under GLP certification and, therefore, will be able to use the results of these studies to apply for registration of medicinal products in three of the main regulatory organizations: the Spanish Agency for Medicinal and Sanitary Products (AEMPS), the European Medicine Agency (EMEA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Moreover, this philosophy of working according to GLP standards is extensible to all R&D&I activities carried out by this company, which is located in the Miramón Technology Park (Donostia-San Sebastian).