Kostrzewski et al

Investigation of the pharmacokinetics (PK) of a compound is of significant importance during drug development to ensure an efficacious dose can be achieved in humans without causing overt toxicity. Several in vitro systems and animal species are routinely employed for this purpose, but these often fail to capture the human phenotype, due to significant species differences or by not being able to accurately assess system effects.

There is a need for more physiologically relevant human in vitro models that provide more accurate predictions of human drug responses, which has fuelled the emerging field of tissue-engineered 3D cultures, also referred to as organs-on-chips, or microphysiological systems (MPS). We have developed fully human MPS models for liver, gut and a multi-organ MPS platform that connects gut and liver. Together these advanced in vitro models allow the investigation of human PK parameters of drug absorption, drug metabolism and bioavailability.