
Organ-on-chip startup raises $28 million
The company was founded in 2013 as Emulate Living MicroDevices Inc. and raised a $12 million Series A in 2014. The latest tranche of money will be used to commercialize its “organs-on-chips” technology into a laboratory-ready system, the company said.
Each of Emulate’s organ-chips – such as the lung, liver, brain or kidney – contains microscopic channels lined with tens of thousands of living human cells and tissues in living, micro-engineered environment that recreates the natural physiology and mechanical forces that cells experience within the human body. The organ-on-chip technology offers the potential for greater precision and control than cell-culture or animal-based experimental methods, Emulate claims.
The company plans to launch a suite of organ-chips and accompanying software as a “human emulation system” allowing researchers and product developers to experiment with chemical pathways and drug efficacy.
At present the organ-chip portfolio covers lung, liver, intestine and skin functions. The Series B money will be used to expand the organ-chip portfolio to include additional organs suh as kidney, heart and brain.
The money was raised from existing investors Hansjörg Wyss, NanoDimension and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, as well as new investors: OS Fund; Atel Ventures; Leandro P. Rizzuto Foundation; and an unnamed investor.
“We have already seen exciting new discoveries and insights from using Organs-on-Chips as a new way to evaluate human response, and to better understand biology and disease — leading to new and improved development of products that impact people’s lives,” said Geraldine Hamilton, chief scientific officer of Emulate.
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