For detailed information, visit www.toxfx.com.

In a recent survey of 284 toxicologists, 84% indicated that the most frequent reason that toxicogenomics is not more widely utilized is that the staff time, resources and expertise necessary to perform the analysis is not readily available. (click here to request a copy of the survey) Furthermore the corresponding long timelines mean that the results are often returned too late to have impact on a discovery program. The second most frequent reason for low utilization of toxicogenomics is the high cost of the experiments.

Iconix has partnered with Affymetrix to develop and market a solution to both these limitations. ToxFX is a low-cost, rapid, high throughput automated toxicogenomic analysis using whole Genome rat arrays, with an option to use a customized low-cost array termed the ToxFX array. This less expensive array is comprised of a reduced gene set containing the genes necessary to define Drug Signatures and the relevant genes necessary for interpreting molecular toxicological experiments. ToxFX enables customers to obtain an informative toxicogenomic screen early in the discovery process when assessing tens to hundreds of compounds and scaffolds.

With the ToxFX application, customers can submit gene expression data and, in less than five minutes, receive an electronic report providing a detailed toxicological assessment of their compound, including DrugSignature matching and pathway analysis. Unlike Custom Mechanistic Reports and Summary Reports, which provide an analysis and recommendations in the context of the entirety of the DrugMatrix database, ToxFx simplifies the criteria and provides an overview based on up to 3 comparator compounds chosen from DrugMatrix. ToxFX analyses can be run on data prepared using the Affymetrix focused array, (GeneChip® ToxFX) or the rat whole genome arrays (GeneChip® 230 2.0).