Now Made in India: Human Mini-Livers

Bangalore startup ‘prints’ out living tissues for medical research and therapeutics

Bangalore, December 24, 2015: Pandorum Technologies Pvt. Ltd., the Bangalore-based biotechnology startup working on tissue engineering, announced today that it has developed artificial tissue that performs the functions of the human liver. These 3D printed living tissues enable affordable medical research with reduced animal and human trials, and will eventually lead to full scale transplantable organs.

“This is a significant milestone,” said Dr. Tuhin Bhowmick, who holds a PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, and co-founded the company, “being able to engineer complex tissues such as the human liver is no easy task.”

“Development of artificial organs has numerous clinical uses. Cell based organoids can be used to develop bio-artificial liver support systems for preserving life in patients who have developed liver failure. In the near future, such artificial organs will address the acute shortage of human organs available for surgical transplantation,” added Dr. Bhowmick.

Pandorum’s artificial liver tissues not only represent a major step towards on-demand manufacturing of human organs for transplant, but also have potential to be a game changer for developing new medicines and vaccines.

“Liver toxicity and drug metabolism are the key hurdles, and contributors to failed human trials. Our 3D bio-printed mini-livers that mimic the human liver will serve as test platforms for discovery and development of drugs with better efficacy, less side-effects and at lower costs,” said Mr. Arun Chandru, co-founder and managing director of Pandorum Technologies.

Pharma giants on an average spend upward of US $ 10 billion dollars and 10 years on R&D to get a single new drug to market with the approval of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The global market for in vitro toxicity testing alone is expected to reach US $ 4 billion by 2018.

“Yes, it is a multi-billion dollar fast growing market, and we intend to continue being a leader.” added Mr. Chandru, “More importantly, our technology has the potential to impact millions of lives.”

Corporate Comm India(CCI Newswire)