How Deepcell’s AI-powered REM-i platform promises to revolutionize drug safety testing
Drug development is an expensive and risky enterprise. Of the thousands of compounds that begin the journey to market, a vanishingly small fraction survive. Toxicity remains one of the most common reasons for failure, particularly in the later, costlier stages of clinical trials. Estimates suggest that more than 90% of candidate drugs never make it to patients, with toxicity cited as a primary cause for attrition. The result is a staggering $2.6 billion average cost per approved drug, much of it sunk into failed candidates.
Yet the tools used to assess cytotoxicity, whether bulk assays like MTT or flow cytometry-based techniques, remain stubbornly outdated. These methods are often label-dependent, limited in throughput, and ill-suited to detecting nuanced or heterogeneous responses, particularly in complex models such as organoids or co-cultures. The result: false negatives, false positives, and a toxic brew of wasted time and capital.
At Deepcell, we believe we’ve found the answer with morphology-based cytotoxicity assessment Our flagship product, REM-i, offers an alternative approach, analysing cells individually, in real time, and without the use of dyes or destructive handling. By capturing high-resolution brightfield images of cells as they flow through microfluidic channels, REM-i generates over a million single-cell profiles per experiment. These are analyzed by Deepcell’s proprietary foundation model, which uses artificial intelligence to identify patterns in morphology,subtle changes in structure that can precede traditional markers of cell death by hours or days.
Seeing Cell Death Before It Happens
Where conventional cytotoxicity assays are narrow and reliant on predefined markers, REM-i captures a broader, more dynamic picture. In a recent study involving Jurkat T cells exposed to known inducers of apoptosis and necrosis, REM-i proved capable of detecting morphological transitions well before flow cytometry assays flagged the cells as compromised. The platform picked up hallmarks such as vacuolization and membrane blebbing, signs invisible to Annexin V or SYTOX staining.
Because the process is label-free and non-destructive, cells remain viable for downstream analyses or longitudinal monitoring. When projected into low-dimensional space using UMAP, cell populations under drug-induced stress form distinct morphological clusters, revealing trajectories of damage and recovery. In effect, REM-i creates a morphological fingerprint of cytotoxic response, an invaluable asset for drug developers seeking early, reliable signals.
From Petri Dish to Pipeline
The implications are significant. In oncology, REM-i can profile dose-dependent responses without the need for lysing or staining. In cell therapies, it can monitor the health and persistence of engineered immune cells over time. In safety pharmacology, it promises to catch off-target effects earlier than existing methods. And because REM-i is designed for high-throughput, automated workflows, it can be deployed across vast compound libraries, offering a scalable path to phenotypic screening.
All of this comes at a moment when the pharmaceutical industry is under growing pressure to improve the efficiency of R&D. Regulators, investors and patients alike are calling for faster, safer, and more personalised therapies. Tools like REM-i, which combine scale, sensitivity and biological depth—may help square the circle.
The Shape of Things to Come
Cytotoxicity testing has long been a blunt instrument. Deepcell’s REM-i introduces a scalpel where previously only hammers were available. By enabling researchers to observe the early, heterogeneous morphological changes that signal cellular distress, it offers a powerful complement, or perhaps an eventual replacement, for conventional toxicology assays.
As biopharma marches toward more predictive, AI-powered discovery platforms, REM-i positions itself not just as a tool for better science, but as an engine for better outcomes. For an industry where failure is the norm, that could be a welcome dose of progress.
Interested in applying REM-i to your cytotoxicity studies?
Get in touch with one of our specialists to learn how Deepcell is enabling biopharma innovators to profile cell death with unprecedented depth, speed, and scalability.
