Vancouver-based Aspect Biosystems recently completed a seed round of financing for an undisclosed amount of money. The company is able to use a special Blue Light technology to rapidly cure their biomaterials without damaging the cells within, and the machines support the printing of dozens of materials and cells at extremely high resolution. While the printers themselves are priced fairly inexpensively at $25,000, it’s the specially formulated bio-inks, priced at $1,000 per 100ml, which will be the cash cow for BioBots in the long run.
Instead of printing actual tissue samples and selling those to researchers, they are offering affordable desktop bioprinters to researchers, pharmaceutical companies and whoever else wants in on this incredible technology. This startup, which recently raised over $300,000 on equity crowdfunding platform FundersClub, is taking a different approach to the market. The company has already raised $16.5 million, and can print biological components such as blood vessels, digestive and urinary organs, cartilage, tubular tissues, and even miniature livers. Each spheroid contains thousands of cells, and once they are placed in a particular order next to other spheroids, they are cultured, leading to self-organization, and eventual tissue. Using a method they call Kenzan, they are able to print three-dimensional cellular structures, such as human tissue, using cellular spheroids in fine needle arrays. In fact, back in March Cyberdyne, a major player within the robotics space, invested into the company in order to push their Regenova technology forward. While not discussed in the headlines as often as Organovo, Cyfuse Biomedical is also working on a bioprinter they call Regenova. With an ultimate goal of 3D printing patches made of human tissue for failing organs, and eventually entire organs for transplantation, Organovo certainly has their work cut out for them. Not only are they currently bringing revenues in by providing pharmaceutical companies with their exVive3D™ Liver Tissue for drug toxicity testing, but they have partnered with major companies in the health space including L’Oréal and Merck, and are planning on introducing their exVive3D™ Kidney Tissue product by next year. The company, headquartered in San Diego, California, has been at the forefront of 3D bioprinting research for some time now. Here are we thought it would be helpful to underline just a handful of those companies that may be about to change medicine as we know it. While the media has mainly focused on Organovo, the company behind the world’s first 3D printable liver tissue, there are actually several other companies involved in this incredible space.
Using layer-by-layer fabrication methods, a number of companies are in the process of pushing forward a new paradigm shift within the medical implant, transplantation, and surgical spaces. Undoubtedly one of the most exciting areas within the 3D printing space is that of bioprinting.
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