Investor Overview
ABOUT Organovo Holdings Inc. (OTCQX: ONVO)
Organovo designs and creates functional, three-dimensional human tissues for medical research and therapeutic applications. We are collaborating with pharmaceutical and academic partners to develop human biological disease models in three dimensions. These 3D human tissues have the potential to accelerate the drug discovery process, enabling treatments to be developed faster and at lower cost. Organovo is changing the shape of medical research and practice.
ORGANOVO HIGHLIGHTS
- Organovo develops the world’s first commercial 3D bioprinting technology platform.
- Organovo reported in April 2013 on the creation of the first fully cellular 3D bioprinted liver tissue.
- Organovo named to MIT Technology Review’s 2012 TR50 List of World’s Most Innovative Companies.
- Organovo’s NovoGen MMX Bioprinter named one of the “Best Inventions of 2010” by TIME Magazine.
- Organovo partners with Autodesk Research to develop 3D bioprinting software.
- Organovo has been featured in leading publications and media outlets, including: The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The New York Times online, Nature, Science, TIME Magazine, Businessweek, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, WIRED, Forbes, MIT Technology Review, CNBC, Discovery Channel, ABC News, and CBS Sunday Morning.
IMPACTS: Drug Discovery & Development
The drug discovery process requires new tools that can provide better insight into how a drug will perform in human clinical trials. Drug discovery and development is very expensive, especially when a drug fails later in clinical trials due to toxicity or ineffectiveness.
A new drug, on average, costs $1.2 billion and takes 12 years to develop. Each year, the pharmaceutical industry spends more than $50 billion on research and development, and approximately 20 new drugs are approved by the FDA. Organovo’s 3D bioprinting technology has the potential to significantly impact the speed and predictiability of drug discovery.
IMPACTS: Transplant Medicine
Organovo’s 3D bioprinting technology also holds great promise for creating direct tissue therapies. More than 114,300 people are waiting for an organ transplant. Last year, fewer than 5,000 transplants took place. Approximately 18 people die each day waiting for an organ. Our long-term goal is to create tissues intended for direct therapeutic use to augment or replace damaged or degenerating organs.
ORGANOVO’S APPROACH
Organovo’s near-term applications are to develop functional 3D human tissues for drug discovery and toxicology testing, because Organovo-produced living tissue provides:
- Better disease models than animals and cells alone
- Better recreation of human biology with in vitro convenience
- Acceleration of drug discovery using 3D human tissues that reproduce the natural microenvironment
The technology is able to create, without the use of scaffolding, 3D anatomically correct tissues with integrated microvasculature. This structural organization of the multiple cell types typical to tissue composition results in tissue-level responses and physiologic processes found in native biology.
3D BIOPRINTING
Growth: The bioprinting process involves taking cells from a research cell line, a patient or other sources and growing them in culture until enough cells are present.
Collection & Formation: The cells are then collected and specially incubated in order to help the cells form bio-ink, consisting of cells and the building blocks to form a functional organ system in vitro. This is the beginning stage of solid tissue formation.
Printing: The cell mixture is loaded into a cartridge, which is then placed into the printer. With a computer-programmed script, the printer deposits the tissue into desired shape. The printed tissue is incubated for 48 hours or more to allow it to mature.
Use: The tissue can be used in a number of research applications, such as drug discovery or toxicology testing. The goal is to replicate human physiology for research, drug testing and, eventually, as therapies. To date, Organovo has worked with several tissue types including blood vessels, cardiac muscle and lung tissue.
partnerships
Our academic and pharmaceutical partnerships advance the discovery, development, and use of 3D human tissues and enable scientists to obtain cellular-level data within the context of a living tissue. Our technology platform helps partners:
- Test the effects of compounds or treatments on human tissues in 3D to understand their roles in human physiology and disease
- Create unique and powerful ways to investigate multiple in vivo systems of interest
- Solve complex research problems and fill next-generation pipelines
- Study disease and identify pathways in a whole new way
We have rapidly developed and produced tissues that can be used in a variety of applications, including 3D models that recapitulate human liver, human vasculature and human small airway. We have also demonstrated that our bioprinted tissues can respond to biomechanical and soluble stimuli, resulting in tissue-level responses that encompass multiple cell types and physiologic processes.
We are currently helping pharmaceutical and academic partners develop 3D human tissues for disease research, drug discovery and development, and toxicity testing. We currently have collaborative partnerships with multiple pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, and leading research institutions, including Harvard Medical School, Oregon Health Sciences University Knight Cancer Institute, and the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine.
