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  • 기자명 PARK JINN SUN
  • Tech & Bio
  • Published 2022.10.14 17:13

[Pangyo Bio & Medical] Humanase Introduces Short Time, Low-Cost Clinical Trial Solution for New Drug Development that Doesn’t Have Animal Testing!

Humanase (CEO Sung-ho Ko) introduced their new drug development solution that can replace animal testing in drug development through the YouTube channel of Pan-gyo Techno Valley, the global convergence R&D hub cluster and global center of IT, BT, CT, and NT.

Drug development requires 10~15 years, has a high cost which can amount to around 5 trillion KRW, and has a very low success rate, where 1 in 10,000 attempts yield a success. In addition, existing drug toxicity tests rely on 2D cell cultures which are quite different in environment from actual biostructures, and toxicity test that rely on animal testing have limitations due differences in species.

To overcome these limitations, Humanase developed ▲Heart-on-a-chip ▲Liver-on-a-chip ▲Brain-on-a-chip for low-cost, quick, and accurate drug toxicity and efficacy tests which are based on human stem-cell derived cardiomyocytes.

In drug development, the cardiac toxicity assessment of all candidate substances is an important and required evaluation, and Humanase’s Heart-on-a-chip is a human stem-cell derived cardiomyocyte-based heart simulating chip that mimics the heart’s key microstructures to overcome the limitations in existing 2D cell cultures and animal testing.

Sung-ho Ko’s (CEO of ‘Humanase’) interview at Pan-gyo Techno Valley | Provided by - YouTube 'Pan-gyo Techno Valley'

It has advantages in being able to improve the degree of conformity in clinical trials when testing the toxicity of a candidate substance for a new drug, and also in being able to raise the rates of success in drug development by reducing or cutting the number of attempts necessary.

The chips that mimic the main microstructures of the heart were studied on the tissue cells of various organs that were grown from human stem-cells, in order to not have animal testing in drug development. Using the heart as an example, cardiomyocytes that were grown from stem-cells can be placed into a chip that had important microenvironments of the heart created in it, and this can be placed into a medium with a drug candidate for the cardiac toxicity assessment.

Sung-ho Ko, the CEO of Humanase, said that, “Our company’s organ imitation chips are 3D biostructure chips that mimic key microstructures of human organs, and can replace animal testing in testing the toxicity and efficacy of new drug candidate substances,” and went on to reveal his plans for the future, saying, “We are planning to make chips like Liver-on-a-chip, Brain-on-a-chip, and Cancer-on-a-chip in the future to study antibiotics. Our goal is to ultimately create a Human-on-a-chip where everything is connected.”

Source: Pangyo Techno Valley Official Newsroom

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