ADVANCING THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Biomedical science and biotechnology are at an exciting and potentially transformative moment:
• NIH Statement on catalyzing the development of NAMs – a $400M innovation program announced on February 1st, 2024.
• FDA Modernization Act – a major update to biomedical regulatory policy, which CCS helped advocate for.
• Rapid acceleration in synthetic and simulation biology – including in silico (A.I.), in vitro, and in chemico models.
We believe a new paradigm of human-relevant R&D is fundamental to developing the next-generation of cures for patients and families. Our goal is to help accelerate this change.
DRIVING INNOVATION
In producing our first Innovation Landscape, the Center for Contemporary Sciences (CCS) evaluated more than 150 companies and organizations working with human-relevant and animal-free technologies for biomedical research and drug development.
* CCS holds no compensatory or monetary connections to any of the entities shown here
We utilized the following 4 criteria to identify our Innovation Landscape's "Innovators To Watch"
1. COMMUNITY RECOGNITION
This criteria looks at how a company or organization is helping to educate stakeholders and the public on human-relevant methods.
A key part of a paradigm shift is producing a next-generation body of knowledge. Experiments on animals have been the testing method that people have used in the majority of medical research for more than a century. Part of the continued acceptance of animal testing comes from the lack of awareness or access to more recently-developed options.
Focus: Peer-reviewed publications, presentations, videos, and news articles.
2. WHOLE SYSTEMS MODELING
This criteria looks at how many systems or models a company or organization is working on. A criticism of NAMs is that to date they have primarily build single organ models. The next frontiers is multi-organ system within a body.
This criteria takes that concern into consideration by evaluating not only how many types of models a company is working on, but if they are focused on one type of model, how their model can work with others to reflect a full system. A large part of the Entire System Modeling Accessibility criteria is the collaboration efforts of a company to build a system if they are not working on one themselves.
Focus: Multiple organ / body system models, collaboration efforts
3. APPLICATIONS
This criteria looks to applications across industries.
In addition to drug development and medical research, toxicity testing for household goods, cosmetics, and other environmental products like pesticides is another major area where the traditional paradigm has limitiations of utilization due to industrial breeding, captivity, experimentation, and sacrifice of immense numbers of animals while suffering from incompete translation or applicability to humans.
Looking to future, human-relevant and NAM models promise greater accuracy and safety.
Focus: Innovations that can be used across applications and industries.
4. ENTIRELY ANIMAL-FREE
This criteria identifies how operationally commited to a next-generation paradigm an organization or company is.
Advances in synthetic and simulation biology have the potential to introdue a new era of human-relevant cures based on NAMs as the best science. We believe the future of biomedicine will be entirely animal-free.
That said, whether or not a company is currenly entirely animal-free in its operations did not hold as much weight as other evaluation criteria, but we believe it will become increasingly central to innovation and go-to-market results in the coming years.
Focus: How currently committed to implementing a next paradigm across operations
CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY SCIENCES
INNOVATORS TO WATCH
Quris is an artificial intelligence innovator using patient-on-a-chip technology to train machine learning models to better predict the safety of drug candidates.
Quris expands what a single patient-
on-a-chip model is able to do by leveraging AI to reflect a broad genomic diversity. The technology Quris is developing goes beyond the limitations of previous generation organ-chip models.Applications have broad possibilities across industries with a scalable platform that the potential to impact drug development field. Quris has collaborated with others in the field and has been recognized in the media for their work.
InSphero is a 3D in vitro model company working to modernize drug discovery with their spheroid-based models. Their mission to “inspire researchers everywhere to reach their full potential and fuel a new era of breakthrough therapies.”
InSphero’s mission to support researchers everywhere sets them apart from others in their field. Their technology is successfully being used in Liver Disease,
Diabetes, and Multi-tissue research.
Emulate is a human in vitro company focused on microphysiological systems ("organ chips"). Their goal is to build a more predictive model of human physiology.
In 2022, Emulate published research showing that their Liver-Chip product predicted drug-induced liver injury better than animals and hepatic spheroid models.
Emulate plays a major role in educating the public on human-relevant models like microphysiological systems. Their work is widely recognized in this space and they actively promote the field through speaking engagements, host webinars, and their Global MPS Day, first held in 2023.
TissUse is a German-based company pioneering human-on-a-chip developments. The company developed a Multi-Organ-Chip platform for preclinical insight using human tissues. TissUse offers service contracts and creates custom
solutions for safety evaluations for drugs, cosmetics, chemicals, and preclinical human disease modeling.TissUse’s Multi-Organ-Chips are used in a variety of applications including drug development, cosmetics, food andnutrition, and consumer products. The significance of their Multi-Organ-Chip platform covers the skin, bone marrow, liver, kidney, intestine, brain, and heart, among other organs. Beyond the far-reaching application of their organ chip system, TissUse works with large companies like Bayer to support their research.
CN-Bio is an organ chip company working on human-relevant single and multi-organ solutions for efficacy and safety data.
CN-Bio’s PhysioMimiz device enables researchers to “culture microtissues that mimic the structure and function of human tissues and organs in vitro.” The human-relevant data generated by their PhysioMimiz works with data from animal testing for decision-making during drug discovery.
CN-Bio’s human-relevant PhysioMimix has applications in disease modeling, safety toxicology, and ADMA. The applications of this product are far reaching and CN-Bio has been recognized as an innovator for their work. CN-Bio provides significant resources including webinars and blogs demonstrating their product and discussing human-relevant organ chip technology.
The Center for Contemporary Sciences (CCS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the health and well-being of humans, animals, and the planet. Core to our mission is supporting innovative scientific and technological advancements that accelerate drug development and the discovery of cures.
