Collaborative partnership forms to accelerate development of organs-on-chips tech

Privately-held company, Emulate, and the Innovative Medicines and Early Development (IMED) Biotech Unit of pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca have formed a collaborative partnership to develop and embed organs-on-chips technology into laboratory research.

As part of the agreement, aimed at accelerating the development of organs-on-chips technology and testing it within the context of a pharmaceutical organisation, Emulate is planning to co-locate scientists within AstraZeneca’s laboratories.

“Organs-on-Chips technology has the potential to enhance and accelerate our ability to translate science into innovative medicines for patients,” said Dr Mene Pangalos, executive vice-president of AstraZeneca’s IMED Biotech Unit and Global Business Development. “Working side by side with Emulate scientists will enable us to better develop the platform and may improve our ability to predict adverse and non-adverse effects in humans. The partnership exemplifies how we are creating permeable research environments where our scientists work together to foster collaborative scientific advancement.”

“We have developed momentum for the adoption of our technology in the pharmaceutical industry, and are establishing a model of how the organ-on-chips technology can be integrated into the labs and existing workflows of pharma and other industries,” added Dr Geraldine A. Hamilton, president and chief scientific officer of Emulate. “This partnership is an example of how we can progress towards our goal of increasing the success of drug discovery and development by providing a platform that recreates human-relevant biology. The research conducted with AstraZeneca will allow us to further develop and add greater functionality to our technology platform.”

The companies began collaborating in 2013 and have recently published some of their work during the Society of Toxicology meeting.

Initially, the companies will be focusing on using Emulate’s Liver-chip for safety testing of drug candidates across the AstraZeneca pipeline with the goal of submitting organ-chip data with the regulatory framework for new drugs.

Additionally, the terms of the agreement will allow the companies to develop functionality for three other Emulate organ-chips — the Lung Tumor-Chip, Lung-Chip, and Glomerulus Kidney-Chip.