Organovo: Top Innovative Company in Biomedicine

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Organovo is one of 10 biomedicine companies included in Technology Review’s 50 Most Innovative Companies (TR50) for 2012 [1].

What is a TR50 company? It is a business whose innovations force other businesses to change their strategic course. TR50 companies are nominated by Technology Review’s editors who look for companies that, over the last year, have demonstrated original and valuable technology, are bringing that technology to market at a significant scale, and are clearly influencing their competitors.

Headquartered in San Diego, California, Organovo is a three-dimensional biology company focused on delivering breakthrough bioprinting technology and creating tissue on demand for medical research and therapeutic applications.

Organovo was chosen to be a TR50 company because of its 3D bioprinting technology, which can be used to create living human tissues that are three-dimensional, architecturally correct, and made entirely of living human cells. The resulting structures can function like native human tissues, and represent an opportunity for advancement in medical research, drug discovery and development, and in the future, surgical therapies and transplantation.

A key innovation of the company is a printing process methodically deposits layers of cells and gel material to build up new tissues. The company’s NovoGen three-dimensional bioprinting technology is a platform that works across all tissue and cell types. Keith Murphy, chairman and CEO of Organovo, said [2]:

The immediate use of Organovo’s 3D bioprinting technology is to create tissues to test drugs in a truly human biological environment and improve today’s drug discovery and development for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. We are driven to continue innovating the technology and working with leaders in the field to fulfill the promise of 3D bioprinting for research and medical applications.

Earlier this month, Organovo announced that they are partnering with Autodesk Research to create the first 3D design software for bioprinting [3]. The software will be used to control Organovo’s NovoGen MMX bioprinter and will represent a major step forward in usability and functionality for designing three-dimensional human tissues.

Interested in other Top Innovative Companies in Biomedicine? Check them all out with the tag Top Innovative Companies in Healthcare.

References

1. The 50 Most Innovative Companies in 2012. Technology Review. Accessed 2012 Apr 10.
2. Organovo Named to MIT Technology Review’s 2012 TR50 List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Organovo. 2012 Feb 28.
3. Organovo Partners With Autodesk Research to Develop 3D Bioprinting Software. Organovo. 2012 Dec 18.