Customer Case Studies
The majority of leading pharmaceutical companies in the world already use Definiens' technology. Here are some examples of how Definiens has solved challenging image analysis tasks and enabled better decisions.
Note: All Case Studies are in PDF format.
Featured Case Study
Crypt Loss and Infiltration in a Mouse Model of Colitis
"Definiens Enables Early Decision Making in Pre-clinical Study"
Altana Pharma AG, Germany
In a pre-clinical safety study of a new compound, a Definiens’ application identified a clear proliferation of bile ducts in monkey livers indicating potential toxicity. The application automatically took measurements of the size and area of the bile ducts and even the number of nuclei they contained. As a result of the study, ALTANA chose not to proceed with an expensive clinical trial using the compound.
Prof. Germann, Head of IPAS, was impressed by the accuracy of the results:
In less than 3% of cases, a bile duct was overlooked or an artifact was incorrectly identified as a bile duct.This level of accuracy was considerably higher than would be expected if pathologists had manually examined the images.
"Definiens Provides Effective Candidate Support"
Altana Pharma AG, Germany
In a pre-clinical safety study, Definiens’ technology automatically measured the height of the fundic and antral mucosa in rat stomachs. The study identified a potentially toxic compound, supporting ALTANA’s ‘no-go’ decision for an expensive clinical trial. ALTANA has adopted Definiens as its image analysis platform for selected pre-clinical safety assessments.
Dr. Tuch, Head of Toxicological Pathology at Altana Pharma:
With Definiens, image analysis results are much less dependent on the quality of staining and image acquisition. For large volumes of images the time to completion is reduced enormously coupled with a significant increase in quality and objectivity.
"Definiens is the Gold Standard in High Content Analysis"
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany
One of the predominant problems in drug discovery is that only approximately one drug out of one Million is a winner. The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden serves as the hub of perhaps the largest industry-academic collaborations in Europe in the field of high-content screening for drug discovery.
Dr. Baines, the Director of Services and Facilities at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics:
Definiens is currently the gold standard in high content analysis software. In fact, Definiens' software is now embedded in the IT environment of our institute. Our microscopy facility is using Definiens to extract data from microscopy images and in our screening facility Definiens provides image analysis data from screens.
"Definiens accelerates Safety and Efficacy Studies"
Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, Switzerland
Preclinical pathologists are under enormous pressure to assess the safety profile of drug candidates in order to accelerate FDA approval. The safety assessment is time-critical since the patent protection marches tirelessly towards expiration and the registration dictates a comprehensive set of preclinical studies.
Dr. Elke Persohn, Head of the Cellular Imaging Group at SP&A, Pathology, at Novartis Pharma AG in Basel:
There is a critical need to get more accurate data faster. Definiens solved our problem to automatically detect small intestine crypts and count proliferating and non-proliferating cells which was not possible with other software solutions.
"Identification of Mitotic Activities in Live Cells"
Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Austria
The Research Institute of Molecular Pathology takes the coordinating lead of a project called MitoCheck where leading European research groups have joined in to screen for genes and proteins crucial for cell division. The first screening of the MitoCheck project, to be performed at the EMBL in Heidelberg, will reveal a comprehensive list of genes whose loss results in blocking mitosis. These genes are then studied further by all partners in this European project to determine their biochemical regulation.
Dr. Karin Paiha of the BioOptics Department of the IMP:
Studying the processes during mitosis means that you must apply live cell microscopy which produces a huge amount of data. We have successfully done tests to teach Definiens software to identify mitotic processes. This enables us to proceed much faster and to analyze more accurately these mitotic genes in the second screening.
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