Emulate develops miniaturized "organ-on-a-chip" devices that culture human cells and simulate organ-specific mechanical and biological conditions to improve preclinical drug testing. The company plans to invest its latest proceeds in an R&D "roadmap" to build model organ systems tailored to drug makers’ needs. Products announced so far include a brain chip, an immune cell recruitment application spanning lung, liver and intestine chips, and a microbiome model integrated into a liver chip. Emulate says it will roll out 14 applications over the next two years, seven of which will arrive next year. The company reports 21 major drug-company customers, including Roche, Genentech, Johnson & Johnson and Gilead Sciences. Emulate has worked with the FDA under a 2020 CRADA (its lung chips were used in COVID-19 research) and notes a potentially favorable regulatory backdrop via the FDA Modernization Act of 2021. Emulate develops a living Human Emulation System powered by Organs-on-Chips technology, comprising Organ-Chips, instrumentation, and software applications. The company’s Organ-Chips include lung, liver, brain, intestine and kidney products and are designed to recreate human physiology in a micro-engineered environment. Emulate plans to add advanced biological capabilities—including models of thrombosis and immune system modulation—and a range of disease models to enable drug efficacy testing and insights into disease mechanisms. It will also enhance the Human Emulation System with new software applications for data analysis, integration with standard analytical approaches, and collaboration across teams. Proceeds from the financing will be used to broaden product functionality, build commercial readiness, and expand community engagement to drive adoption by early pharmaceutical users. Emulate has developed its platform through collaborations with industry, academia, hospitals, and regulatory agencies and holds a worldwide exclusive license from Harvard University to Organs-on-Chips intellectual property. Emulate creates living products based on Organs-on-Chips technology and is commercializing a lab-ready Human Emulation System that includes Organ-Chips, instrumentation, and software apps. Each Organ-Chip contains micro-engineered channels lined with living human cells to recreate physiology and mechanical forces, intended to predict human response more precisely than cell culture or animal testing. The company intends to serve industries including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, food, agriculture, cosmetics, and consumer products, and is working with clinical partners to produce personalized Organ-Chips using patients' stem cells. Emulate holds the worldwide exclusive license from Harvard University (Wyss Institute) to the Organs-on-Chips intellectual property, and its founding team pioneered the technology at the Wyss Institute. The company is privately held and based in Boston. Management says the expanded funding will accelerate R&D, expedite product launches, expand strategic partnerships, and move the company toward profitability. Emulate commercializes Organs-on-Chips technology as a lab-ready Human Emulation System that combines Organ-Chips, instrumentation, and software apps to enable human-relevant R&D within existing workflows. The system is designed to be plug-and-play, increasing throughput and allowing customizable experiments without specialized expertise. Emulate plans to expand its Organ-Chip portfolio beyond lung, liver, intestine, and skin to include kidney, heart, and brain, and to grow disease-state applications for neurodegenerative diseases, oncology, intestinal diseases and the microbiome, and infectious diseases. The company is pursuing collaborations with industry, academia, clinical and government partners and is working on Organ-Chips personalized with individual patients’ stem cells for precision medicine applications. Emulate holds the worldwide exclusive license from Harvard University to the Organs-on-Chips intellectual property and its founding team pioneered the technology at the Wyss Institute. The company aims to translate its R&D into commercial products across drug development, agriculture, cosmetics, food, and chemical-based consumer products. Financially, Emulate announced a $28 million Series B to accelerate product development, launch the Human Emulation System, expand strategic partnerships, and move toward profitability. Emulate develops an automated Organs-on-Chips platform and software that bioemulates human organ physiology and disease to predict responses to medicines, chemicals and toxins. Its miniaturized devices contain channels lined with living human cells cultured under continuous flow and mechanical regimens (for example, cyclic breathing and peristalsis) and can be linked to form a Human-Body-on-Chips. The company emphasizes automated instrumentation that permits molecular-scale, real-time analysis to elucidate mechanisms of action and toxicity. Emulate plans to commercialize the platform through co-innovation with corporate and clinical clients and through internal development programs, targeting applications in drug development, cosmetics, personalized medicine, agriculture and consumer health. The company launched with a $12 million Series A financing to advance its first commercial applications. Emulate’s team and foundational research originate from the Wyss Institute at Harvard, and the company holds a worldwide license to a broad intellectual property portfolio from Harvard.

Total raised

$175M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Series E

Latest activity

Sep 2021