3D printed body-on-chip predicts human drug distribution

Application

• PK/PD analysis of compounds
• Organ-to-organ interactions research
• Radiotracer development
• Systems biology research in physiological and pathological conditions
• Multi-organ toxicology testing

Development Status

Ongoing development - proof of concept validation

IP Status

PCT application filed March 2024

Commercial Offerings

Licensing or collaborative opportunity

Opportunity

Only 2% of compounds progress through the drug discovery pipeline, leading to extremely low clinical success rates of a drug candidate in humans, creating a need for better human predictors before starting in vivo animal work for drug development.

The 3D-printed device developed is a novel body-on-chip with an innovative multi-organ design and capillary flow that uniquely facilitates homogenous drug circulation to all organs, unlike other chip devices that use sequential perfusion or diffusion. It closely mimics how a drug circulates through a patient’s body and how the drug would be distributed throughout organs of interest without a need for animal testing.

Moreover, it is theoretically compatible with any transwell-based cell model – enabling the opportunity to test drugs in various disease models – including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and immune diseases. In this way, the novel drug distribution chip allows for better predictions of in vivo success, reducing the failure rate of drug candidates in small animal studies - saving time, money, and animal life.

Technology

The device is a 3D-printed block containing a network of five "organ" compartments designed to hold 5 different cell models of interest, with pilot studies using compartments that replicate the human heart, lungs, kidney, liver and brain. These “organ” compartments have interconnecting "capillaries" through which the drug is circulated via a standard peristaltic pump. The capillary flow mimics the circulatory system to distribute the media equally to all organs from the central organ in parallel for homogenous perfusion rather than sequential perfusion from organ to organ in the currently available body-on-chips.

Affordable, common, and simple lab techniques including simple cell culture and high-performance liquid chromatography can be used to quantify drug uptake over time in PET kinetic models to predict human distribution.

Benefits

• Functional circulation of drug across chambers, closely mimicking the human circulatory system.
• Flexibility and compatibility with various cell types to test several organs and/or disease models.
• Multi-organ chambers to test and combine multiple organs and/or disease cell models to investigate organ cross-talk and how diseases can interfere with each other.

Publications

3D-printed chip showing body’s reaction to drugs could end need for animal tests | Drugs | The Guardian

Quote: TEC1104529