Cellular models developed to better predict proarrhythmic liability of drug candidates include commercially-available human stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CM) obtained from healthy subjects. Cardiac safety assessment, however, should not be limited to preclinical models using “healthy” cellular systems. It is relevant to test drugs in systems recapitulating various cardiac conditions found in the general population. Similarly, modeling diseases in hiPSC-CM can be used for the discovery of novel therapies. Developing an assay using hiPSC-CM to model mutation-specific arrhythmogenic diseases to screen drug candidates represents a real opportunity at a time where personalized medicine is the focus of many drug safety/ discovery programs. At the last Precision Medicine & Ion Channel Retreat (July 24th-26th 2019), Marc Pourrier, IonsGate Co-founder presented data on hiPSC-CM overexpressing a long QT type 2 mutation (hERG mutation).
