Cambridge organ-on-a-chip startup Emulate has raised $28.75 million in a Series B round, with aims to commercialize its “Human Emulation System” on the R&D circuit. The idea, as with most lab-on-a-chip technologies, is to enhance in vitro research so as to make animal and in-human studies more efficient – using algorithms and microfluidics to accurately predict human response to medicines, chemicals and diseases.
The financing will help expand Emulate’s organ-on-a-chip portfolio. Currently, it’s got organ emulations of the lung, liver, intestine and skin – but it plans to branch into organs like the kidney, heart and brain. Beyond that, however, is the concept of developing specific labs-on-chips to address important disease states, such as cancers, disorders of the intestine and microbiome, and infectious disease.
Emulate wants its technology to “operate as a plug-and-play system in the hands of product development teams at pharmaceutical, chemical, food and consumer products companies,” CEO James Coon said in a statement.
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Emulate says its organ chips mimic the functionality of specific organs — containing tiny channels that are lined with thousands of human cells and tissues. Each chip is about the size of a AA battery. This “micro-engineered environment recreates the natural physiology and mechanical forces that cells experience within the human body,” the company said in a statement.
Emulate raised $12 million in a Series A in 2014.
