Our approach

A dedicated and flexible service

Metrion Biosciences is a contract research organisation (CRO) specialising in providing a range of high-quality ion channel drug discovery services.

Our approach provides a dedicated, flexible service tailored to each customer’s requirements. It is supported by rapid reporting and data interpretation by our experienced ion channel team.

We provide a range of exceptional ion channel electrophysiology expertise and services. These services include high-quality, cost-effective compound screening assays, detailed characterisation of lead compounds in human cells and native tissue, as well as confirmation of efficacy in stem cell and other phenotypic models.

Metrion’s customer centric approach

In brief

We provide:

• High quality ion channel electrophysiology expertise and services
• High quality, cost-effective compound screening assays
• Detailed characterisation of lead compounds in human cells and native tissue
• Confirmation of efficacy in stem cell and other phenotypic models
• Rapid reporting and data interpretation by our experienced ion channel team
• A dedicated, flexible service tailored to each customer’s requirements

Our services

Metrion Biosciences is a specialist pre-clinical Contract Research Organisation (CRO) focused on delivering a range of high-quality ion channel drug discovery services. We provide highly skilled electrophysiology screening services to support customer medicinal chemistry optimisation programmes, CiPA-compliant cardiac safety profiling assays, neuroscience assays and translational assays.

Our facilities

Metrion is located within the Cambridge bio cluster, one of Europe’s largest bioscience research hubs. Our state of the art laboratories at Granta Park house high-quality facilities for native and engineered cell line and induced pluripotent stem cell culture, a comprehensive suite of automated patch clamp platforms, multiple manual patch clamp rigs, fluorescence-based screening capabilities and laboratory data management and reporting systems.

Ion channel screening: high-quality platforms

Ion channel drug discovery is reliant on sophisticated screening platforms. Metrion scientists have decades of accumulated experience utilising such devices. We offer flexible support for assay development, primary target screening, hit confirmation, lead optimisation and SAR, mechanistic and phenotypic studies.

All of our electrophysiology platforms deliver high-quality recordings and data.

They include:

• Qube-384
• QPatch II-48
• QPatch-48
• FLIPR-Penta
• Patchliner
• Manual patch clamp
• Multi-Electrode Array and impedance (native and iPSC neurons and cardiomyocytes)
• FlexStation

Our strength and expertise

Overview

• Extensive drug discovery expertise
• Expert provider of ion channel screening assays
• Proven record of delivering high-quality data, on time and in a cost-effective manner
• Staff have been involved with multiple, successful, integrated drug discovery programmes

A wealth of screening know-how

• Metrion are highly experienced with voltage-gated and ligand-gated ion channel families
• Detailed understanding of modulator MOA, compound class issues and safety profiles
• Screening cascade experience from target validation to HTS and SAR
• Translation of ion channel expertise to phenotypic neuronal and cardiac assays

Automated patch clamp experts

• Over ten years of experience operating a range of gigaseal APC platforms