Challenges and Solutions
The Multi-Organ-Chip (MOC) technology is an alternative to animal testing in pharmaceutical, cosmetics and chemical industry. A critical performance criterion is the ability to measure in-process controls online. Currently daily sampling is done manually. All parameters of interest are measured separately which is time consuming and does not express the full value of the MOC concept.
The ability to measure critical process parameters online and in parallel is a crucial step towards a fully automated Multi-Organ-Chip system. This would allow for faster predictions of responses of the Multi-Organ-Chip systems to the exposure of drug compounds/cosmetic ingredients/chemicals.
TissUse is a German company providing high-value services and products in the area of tissue culture analysis of drug candidates, cosmetics, chemicals and consumer products. Based on its proprietary technology platform, TissUse develops and commercializes Multi-Organ-Chips. The company is the first on the market to provide such solution.
The project between CSEM and TissUse in the scope of the gateone-project is dedicated to support the company in the evolution from a serial to a parallel analysis process required for the use of TissUse platform.
Gateone Support
The gateone-project provides a unique framework of cooperation between the German SME and the Swiss Research and Technology Organisation. Moreover, one of the mission of the gateone-project is to lower the adoption barrier of bio related technologies thanks to smart systems, and the partnership with CSEM will further contribute to the value proposition of the existing platform by demonstrating the benefits of process automation. The open innovation framework provided by the Smart Anything Everywhere initiative is ideally suited for sharing the risk and build a strong base for a future partnership.
Impact/What’s next
The project is very promising and addresses a strong market need to optimize pharma drug discovery process with better ROI. It could also contribute to the development of know-how and competencies in Europe to drive regenerative therapies in the future. TissUse presents a strong differentiation and gateone-project through CSEM could support a major technical achievement for the company to reinforce its market penetration and support the growth of the MOC market. Major pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies are expressing interest in such solution. The process parallelisation to be developed in the scope of Smart Anything Everywhere will have a major impact to demonstrate the feasibility and benefits for automation for today and future MOC users.