Right to the tissue

A microbioreactor that grows cells as three dimensional tissues could give scientists a better insight on how pharmaceutical drugs will affect humans.

Zyoxel, the Oxford University spin-out company behind the technology, claims its TissueFlex microbioreactor could speed up the drug development process and save the global pharmaceutical industry $8bn (£4.9bn) per year.

The technology is expected to be on the market in the next six months following a recent £1m investment from Hong Kong multinational CN Innovations Holdings.

Tim Hart, chief executive of Zyoxel, explained that conventional systems test the toxicity and efficacy of drugs on cells that are grown a single layer at a time.

‘What happens at the moment is you’re growing cells that are far removed from the in-body state,’ he said.

A drug's affect on a single layer of cells, Hart added, could be dramatically different to its affect on a full human tissue.

‘What we know is about 40 per cent of drugs which enter the clinic will fail due to toxicity and inefficacy issues,’ he said. ‘So there is a massive failure rate from drugs and one of the reasons we believe is that we are not discovering and developing drugs in systems that are close enough to the in-body system.’