Organovo Holdings, Inc. (ONVO)

[RandolRocketman]

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 06, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Organovo Holdings, Inc. ( ONVO ) (“Organovo”) and Viscient Biosciences (“Viscient”) today announced a collaboration to develop a custom research platform for studying liver disease. The partnership is expected to expand upon Organovo’s current service portfolio for compound screening in disease models, which aids the drug discovery work of the Company’s customers. Viscient is targeting early discovery work for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (“NAFLD”) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (“NASH”).
“We continue to have excellent traction with a wide range of biopharmaceutical companies in evaluating our tissue systems to facilitate the discovery and development of novel drug candidates to treat liver disease,” said Taylor J. Crouch, CEO, Organovo. “Our 3D disease models have the unique capability to demonstrate drug mechanisms of action and efficacy in a setting that closely mimics human livers. We’re proud to collaborate with Viscient’s talented team as they have a strong understanding of our expertise. Our aim is to establish a custom platform that will support high-value drug profiling, and ultimately move our collaboration into a steady-state relationship.”
“Viscient is a strong believer in unlocking the power of 3D bioprinting to bring cures and treatments to patients with few options today,” said Keith Murphy, CEO, Viscient Biosciences. “In our pursuit of breakthrough therapies in important areas of medicine, we’re eager to tap into novel, complex and more accurate disease models. Organovo’s technology provides the potential for valuable and unprecedented insights as we target new drugs in areas of unmet medical need and strong commercial potential.”
Deteriorating liver function is a growing and serious public health concern, with an estimated 100 million adults in the U.S. afflicted with NAFLD, while up to 20 million more Americans are projected to have NASH. Left unchecked, these diseases can progress to cirrhosis and cancer, with NASH being the second leading cause of liver transplants in the U.S. Despite decades of intense research worldwide, the understanding of NAFLD progression and the development of novel therapeutic approaches have been limited by the lack of advanced systems that mimic human liver biology over an extended period of time.