Roche and Takeda have announced that they will be using organ-chip technology in their R&D Programs through partnerships with Emulate, the biotech startup behind organs-on-a-chip.

Emulate and Roche have formed a three-year partnership to use organ-chips for testing the efficacy and safety of new antibody therapeutics and combination therapies. 

Working in a jointly-run lab, researchers hope to use the chips to gain further insight into disease mechanisms and to increase predictability and early detection of biomarkers.

The collaboration will initially use lung-chips and brain-chips with the possibility of using other organ-chips. 

The partnership with Takeda will use Emulate’s intestine-chip in the R&D of drugs to treat gastrointestinal (GI) diseases.

The intestine-chip can be used to recreate the mechanisms of the intestinal lining, which is understood to be associated with many GI diseases.