Privately held company, Emulate, has secured a $36 million Series C financing round, the funds from which will be used to expand the company’s product suite and commercialisation of its Human Emulation System.
Additional funding
The financing round was led by Founders Fund and included investment from ALS Investment Fund, SciFi VC, members of GlassWall Syndicate Association as well as other existing investors. The money raised will directly impact the company’s expansion of its suite of products within its Human Emulation System, broadening functionality and enhancing commercial efforts, so that researchers in the pharma industry can use organ-on-chips technology across the entire drug discovery and development process.
“The dependence of drug development on animal models for safety and efficacy testing has hit a wall,” explained Aaron VanDevender, chief scientist and principal at Founders Fund. “As therapeutic approaches become ever more precise and complex, the limitations of legacy animal models increasingly prevent accurate predictions of drug responses in humans. This crisis has simultaneously put patients at risk of unpredictable side effects while inhibiting the approval of novel life-saving therapies. Emulate’s platform uses human cells to recapitulate human physiology, enabling the development of safer, more efficacious drugs. We believe its adoption by drug developers is a scientific, commercial, and moral imperative.”
In addition to the expansion of the functionality of Emulate’s automated lab-ready Human Emulation System, advanced biological capabilities added to the company’s Organ-Chip products, including the Liver-Chip, Intestine-Chip, Lung-Chip, Brain-Chip, and human-relevant models of thrombosis and immune system modulation. This expanded product suite will also include a range of disease models that will be designed to enable drug efficacy testing and elucidate new insights into disease mechanisms.
“Emulate is energised and inspired to be among the companies in the Founders Fund portfolio,” commented Geraldine A. Hamilton, president and chief scientific officer of Emulate. “At this next stage of our company’s growth, we are expanding our product portfolio, as well as building our commercial-readiness and community support team to drive integration of our platform by early adopters in the pharmaceutical industry.
“Based on our work with pharma companies, we now keenly understand how users wish to adopt our products across the entire R&D process, from discovery to the clinic. We look forward to building the expanded functionality of the Human Emulation System that will enhance and accelerate our ability to translate science into innovative medicines for patients.”