Organovo and Johnson & Johnson Team to Evaluate 3D Bio-printed Tissue Use

IMTS

Share this Article

It’s only a matter of time before 3D bio-printing really takes off. One of the leaders in the space is Organovo, a company who has already been able to 3D print living liver tissue, and has an ultimate goal of 3D printing a org-2functioning liver for transplantation within a human being.

Before we get there though, there are many useful applications to 3D printed living tissue, which can already be used today. One such application is that of drug discovery testing. Every year billions of dollars are spent performing clinical trials on potential new drugs for the market. Many of these trials involve human beings, oftentimes being put at some risk. Liver toxicity testing, in particular, is usually performed using tissue samples from cadavers, meaning it’s not all that easy to obtain such samples. What 3D bio-printing enables researchers to do, is create live human tissue, which can then be used as a test bed to discover any negative reactions a particular drug may have on that tissue. Once scaled up, such a process could make available as much tissue as is needed for research, as well as tissue of extremely high quality.

org-feat

Organovo has been leading the way in this space. They have been working for years to perfect the 3D printing techniques required to produce high quality tissue, which is able to stay alive over a long period of time. org-1Today, the company announced an agreement with one of the largest pharmaceutical corporations on the planet, Johnson & Johnson. The actual agreement was signed between Organovo and Janssen Research and Development (JRD), a pharmaceutical company of Johnson & Johnson.

Under this agreement, of which the exact terms have not yet been disclosed, the companies will work together to evaluate the use of 3D bio-printed tissue in a drug discovery setting. Just what kind of tissue, and to what extent the testing will be done, is yet to be seen, however, it certainly bodes well for the progress of 3D bio-printing technology. To have a major, globally recognizable, corporation like Johnson & Johnson on board, could push the adoption of this technology, as well as its progress to a whole to level. It is interesting to note that following the release of an 8K filing disclosing this agreement this morning, shares of Organovo are up over 11%.

What will the implications of this agreement be? Let’s hear your opinions in the Organovo/Johnson & Johnson forum thread on 3DPB.com.

Share this Article


Recent News

Will There Be a Desktop Manufacturing Revolution outside of 3D Printing?

Know Your Würth: CEO AJ Strandquist on How Würth Additive Can Change 3D Printing



Categories

3D Design

3D Printed Art

3D Printed Food

3D Printed Guns


You May Also Like

Featured

Pressing Refresh: What CEO Brad Kreger and Velo3D Have Learned About Running a 3D Printing Company

To whatever extent a business is successful thanks to specialization, businesses will nonetheless always be holistic entities. A company isn’t a bunch of compartments that all happen to share the...

Würth Additive Launches Digital Inventory Services Platform Driven by 3D Printing

Last week, at the Additive Manufacturing Users’ Group (AMUG) Conference in Chicago (March 10-14), Würth Additive Group (WAG) launched its new inventory management platform, Digital Inventory Services (DIS). WAG is...

Featured

Hypersonic Heats Up: CEO Joe Laurienti on the Success of Ursa Major’s 3D Printed Engine

“It’s only been about 24 hours now, so I’m still digesting it,” Joe Laurienti said. But even via Zoom, it was easy to notice that the CEO was satisfied. The...

Featured

3D Printing’s Next Generation of Leadership: A Conversation with Additive Minds’ Dr. Gregory Hayes

It’s easy to forget sometimes that social media isn’t reality. So, at the end of 2023, when a burst of doom and gloom started to spread across the Western world’s...