XenoTech Featured in Fall Issue of NewsWave

Leader in pharmaceutical research and scientific collaboration

Originally printed in the Fall 2017 Issue of NewsWave.

XenoTech, LLC, which is headquartered in Kansas City, KS, was founded in 1994 to provide scientists and pharmaceutical researchers with the finest tools and resources needed to advance the development of safer drugs. XenoTech’s products and contract services optimize the discovery, development, and approval of new therapies worldwide. From a small laboratory at the University of Kansas Medical Center, XenoTech has grown to become a trusted partner and expert consultant to almost every one of the top global pharmaceutical companies, as well as numerous biotechs, smaller or virtual pharma entities, academic institutions and more.

XenoTech’s experience dates back to the 1980s. The KU Medical Center laboratory, that would eventually evolve into XenoTech, was busy doing its own drug metabolism research and making its own cellular test systems for this research. Their research was so well regarded that, after repeated requests from the scientific community, they began to ship their test systems as products to laboratories worldwide and perform contract studies with those products. This respect continues to this day, with the company being requested to present at global industry events, contribute to various publications, and cited in over 2,000 papers and other research.

Our business

XenoTech specializes in providing in vitro drug metabolism and drug-drug interaction (DDI) contract research services to predict, evaluate and explain the DDI potential of new drug candidates prior to or concurrent with human clinical trials, including analytical, drug transport, enzyme inhibition and induction, and related studies. They also continue to sell the tissue and cellular-based test systems that it creates for this research, including a wide range of high-quality, unique and standard reagents, such as subcellular fractions, hepatocytes and tissue samples, along with related products including media, cell lines from the Japanese Collection of Research Biosources Cell Bank (JCRB), recombinant enzymes, substrates and metabolites from Cypex, and metabolite production kits from HepatoChem.

XenoTech, LLC was acquired by SEKISUI Medical Co. Ltd in August of 2008 to add the company’s focused expertise on biotransformation and preclinical development, consulting to the broad range of pharmaceutical development services offered by SEKISUI. This alignment allowed XenoTech to become a global contract research organization (CRO) with unparalleled experience in absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME); drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK); and DDI, offering a comprehensive range of services to accelerate drug development from discovery through clinical support, including screening, radiolabeling, active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing, in vitro ADME, toxicology and pharmacology, in vivo pre-clinical ADME, toxicology and quantitative whole body autoradiography (QWBA), metabolite ID and production, bioanalytical services, and consulting.

Just as joining SEKISUI’s family helped XenoTech expand its service offerings, they are also expanding and enhancing their product offerings by deploying new technologies to improve material performance and viability, as well as offering new test systems to meet the changing needs of their clients.

Commitment to social responsibility

XenoTech also embraced SEKISUI’s commitment to social responsibility. Their CSR effort features the Green Hearts Team, which formed as a sustainability committee in 2014. The Green Hearts Team works on projects that reduce waste, lower energy usage, and increase environmental awareness. The team has hosted webinars, brought in guest speakers, and presented trainings about environmental awareness. One of the efforts that Green Hearts is leading is to achieve zero landfill this fiscal year by steadily changing landfill waste streams over to recycling. Thanks to them, recycling surpassed landfill by the end of FY2015, and has increased its lead since then. They are also working to eliminate energy usage inefficiencies. This reduces XenoTech’s carbon footprint, and lowers fixed costs.

XenoTech’s Employee Recognition Team also sponsors blood drives, charity drives, and community activities. They sponsor an annual Angel Tree where employees buy Christmas presents for less-fortunate kids. The Employee Recognition Team also puts on fundraising events for charity, disaster relief, or disease research.

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