Organ-on-a-Chip Determines if Injected Medicines Work
Around 16 billion injections are performed worldwide each year, mostly for therapeutic applications including the delivery of biologics such as insulin and monoclonal antibodies. Compared to intravenous injections, subcutaneous injections are preferred since they can be self-administered and do not require hospital visits. However, development of subcutaneously injectable drugs is hampered by the limitations of existing animal models, primarily, their poor ability to correlate with human pharmacokinetics. The absence of a satisfactory pre-clinical model greatly increases the risk of clinical development, especially higher costs and lower success rates.
To solve this problem, a research team from Professor Samir Mitragotri’s lab has created a device called Subcutaneous Co-Culture Tissue-on-a-chip for Injection Simulation (SubCuTIS). This technology features a three-dimensional co-culture tissue architecture that mimics the physiological characteristics of subcutaneous tissues in vivo. This organ-on-a-chip device is like a small, artificial piece of tissue that can measure the movement of biologics when injected subcutaneously. The SubCuTIS device helps researchers understand how fast and effectively biologics will move through the tissue after injection. This approach identifies subtle differences in local absorption rate constants for clinically relevant biologics including monoclonal antibodies.
SubCuTis can help predict some of the most relevant aspects of subcutaneously injected drugs including bioavailability in humans, site-to-site variability after injection, local disposition of the drug after injection and parameters that improve the injection performance.
SubCuTIS represents a significant advancement in expanding the practical applications of organs-on-chips as a standardized and accessible device for quantitatively analyzing subcutaneous drug transport. It opens new possibilities for the use of microfluidic devices to recapitulate complex tissues in a reliable manner, consistent with the goals of the FDA modernization act. This technology has immediate applications in drug development, especially in optimizing the pharmacokinetic profiles of subcutaneously administered biotherapeutics.
Around 16 billion injections are performed worldwide each year, mostly for therapeutic applications including the delivery of biologics such as insulin and monoclonal antibodies. Compared to intravenous injections, subcutaneous injections are preferred since they can be self-administered and do not require hospital visits. However, development of subcutaneously injectable drugs is hampered by the limitations of existing animal models, primarily, their poor ability to correlate with human pharmacokinetics. The absence of a satisfactory pre-clinical model greatly increases the risk of clinical development, especially higher costs and lower success rates.
To solve this problem, a research team from Professor Samir Mitragotri’s lab has created a device called Subcutaneous Co-Culture Tissue-on-a-chip for Injection Simulation (SubCuTIS). This technology features a three-dimensional co-culture tissue architecture that mimics the physiological characteristics of subcutaneous tissues in vivo. This organ-on-a-chip device is like a small, artificial piece of tissue that can measure the movement of biologics when injected subcutaneously. The SubCuTIS device helps researchers understand how fast and effectively biologics will move through the tissue after injection. This approach identifies subtle differences in local absorption rate constants for clinically relevant biologics including monoclonal antibodies.
SubCuTis can help predict some of the most relevant aspects of subcutaneously injected drugs including bioavailability in humans, site-to-site variability after injection, local disposition of the drug after injection and parameters that improve the injection performance.
SubCuTIS represents a significant advancement in expanding the practical applications of organs-on-chips as a standardized and accessible device for quantitatively analyzing subcutaneous drug transport. It opens new possibilities for the use of microfluidic devices to recapitulate complex tissues in a reliable manner, consistent with the goals of the FDA modernization act. This technology has immediate applications in drug development, especially in optimizing the pharmacokinetic profiles of subcutaneously administered biotherapeutics.
Intellectual Property Status: Patent(s) Pending
Case Number: 9701