Leading bioengineering company CN Bio has launched a fee for service program providing Human Organ-on-Chip data to scientists studying non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) therapeutics.

CN Bio launched the program at the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD) meeting. Scientists from the firm also unveiled data validating its fully human model of NASH, comparing its expression profile to that of patient samples.

Director of Biology at CN Bio, Tom Kostrzewski, said: “Organ-on-Chip studies are now available to pharmaceutical researchers developing new NASH therapeutic candidates. Our contract services can assist teams to accelerate and de-risk projects.

“This includes optimising clinical trial design, prioritising pre-clinical candidates, investigating mechanisms of action and generate actionable data in weeks.”

University of Cambridge researcher and CN Bio collaborator Dr Michele Vacca said: “The CN Bio microphysiological system allows hepatic cultures to be grown for weeks with low signs of cytotoxicity or hepatocytes de-differentiation detectable.

“CN Bio has developed an efficient proprietary protocol to model NASH that shows really high homology with murine models of NASH in terms of transcriptome, inflammatory profiling and pathophysiological events crucial for disease progression”

Vacca is a Clinician Research Associate at Cambridge’s Institute of Metabolic Science.

CN Bio’s Kostrzewski explained: “Our team will work with you to design your study, acquire compounds, source cells and meet your research goals.

“Researchers can use CN Bio services to screen and investigate mechanisms of action for new therapeutic candidates over weeks rather than waiting months for data from complex and non-translatable in vivo studies.”

All studies are performed and analysed using CN Bio’s PhysioMimix® Organ-on-Chip platform. PhysioMimix is deployed in pharmaceutical, consumer goods companies and regulators globally. It enables researchers to culture a wide range of cell types including iPSCs, primary cells and commercial inserts to mimic human physiology in vitro. Data from PhysioMimix® studies can provide reliable human-relevant detail to guide preclinical studies or industrial screening.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is now the most common chronic liver disease in developed countries and there are no approved drugs to treat this indication. NAFLD is a spectrum of pathologies ranging from benign hepatic steatosis through to NASH, which can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer.

AASLD is the premier meeting of leading scientists and health care professionals committed to preventing and curing liver disease. It is held in Boston on 8th-12th November 2019.

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About CN Bio Innovations

We help pharma and biotech companies to improve the speed and accuracy of preclinical drug testing. Our human tissue-based Organ-on-Chip studies provide quicker, more predictive data, enabling teams to decide with confidence which projects they should invest in.

Consumer goods, chemical companies and regulators use our lab-benchtop PhysioMimix® Organ-on-Chip (OOC) device to analyze compounds, assessing toxicity and safety in cells and organ models.

We support scientists who need data-rich in vitro studies to investigate a wide range of biological processes in:

  • infectious diseases
  • metabolism
  • gene editing
  • therapeutic antibodies/proteins
  • cellular therapies

Our technology is being used by scientists at the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) to investigate drug metabolism, toxicity and drug-drug interactions.

We work closely with leading academic bio-engineering groups including MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Vanderbilt University. CN Bio was also a participant in the DARPA (United States Defence Advanced Research Projects agency) microphysiological system project.

CN Bio has also developed hepatic in vitro models using the PhysioMimix® OOC system. Assays for NAFLD/steatosis and NASH disease states are available from the company on a fee for service basis.