Organ-on-chip tech could boost BioE3 goal to personalise medicine Premium

India's BioE3 policy aims to drive innovation in biotechnology, focusing on precision therapeutics and organ-on-chip technology.

On August 24, the Government of India announced the ‘BioE3’ policy to drive innovation in the biotechnology sector by establishing biomanufacturing facilities, bio-AI hubs, and bio-foundries. (‘AI’ stands for artificial intelligence.) A key focus area of the policy is precision therapeutics, which involve developing and administering drugs according to the needs of individual patients. The policy also aims to boost the development of biologics such as gene therapy and cell therapy.

Recent advancements in human-relevant 3D culture models, also known as ‘new approach methods’ (NAMs), have shown promising results in the field of precision therapeutics. These models include 3D spheroids, organoids, bioprinting, and organ-on-chips.

The global organ-on-chip market is expected to be worth around $1.4 billion by 2032. This expansion is the result of increasing investments in R&D within the field of NAMs, particularly in organ-on-a-chip technology. Since its invention, this technology has acquired significant momentum and stands poised to revolutionise the healthcare sector by integrating cells derived from a human body with a well-defined in vitro biological environment (i.e. in the lab) that mimics the body’s conditions.

A major driving factor in the organ-on-chip market is the increasing demand to replace the use of animals to test drugs.

In April, an English company named CN Bio raised $21 million from venture capitalists to expand its R&D in organ-on-chip technology. In the U.S., Vivodyne raised $38 million in seed funding to integrate large-scale automation and AI with organ-on-chips. These are just two recent examples to illustrate the growing interest in this technology and its commercial value.

In the current and traditional drug development process, researchers take almost a decade and an average cost of $2.3 billion to bring a new drug from the lab to the market. However, many drug candidates also fail in the final stages of clinical trials. One major reason is that in the early stages of trials, these drugs are tested on animal models — animals genetically engineered to respond to a drug the way a human organ (or organs) might. Drugs that succeed on these animals often fail in humans, however.

Organ-on-chip technology offers a potential solution to this problem by providing a more accurate and efficient platform for testing drugs without involving animals or humans in preclinical testing. An organ-on-chip is a small device designed to recreate the dynamic functions of some human organ in a controlled microenvironment. They are expected to be better than the cell cultures and animal models researchers currently use at testing the effects of a drug. The results from the use of these devices would in turn provide a better understanding of the drug-candidate’s efficacy and toxicity, reduce the use of animals, and pave the way for personalised treatment.