InSphero Launches Human Liver Microtissues

3D liver models are often difficult to adapt for screening purposes by pharmaceutical toxicology laboratories or are associated with very high costs, long delivery times and complex handling and assay procedures. InSphero’s 3D InSight™ Human Liver Microtissue spheroids provide an easy-to-implement 3D liver co-culture model in a convenient 96-well format at affordable cost. No new instruments and no changes to workflow or readouts are required.

InSphero uses its patent-pending formation technology for 3D microtissues to mimic the natural cell composition of the human liver: these co-culture systems include not only primary hepatocytes but also macrophages such as Kupffer cells. This is the first time that reliable and automatically produced microtissues can detect even rare toxicological effects such as inflammation-mediated toxicity.

With the new product launch, InSphero extends its existing portfolio of 3D HepG2 and 3D Rat Liver Microtissues to include toxicological assessment on a sophisticated organotypic human model. "Our team worked closely together with global pharma companies for two years to refine this product into an excellent and robust tool for drug-discovery and development groups", says Dr. Jan Lichtenberg, CEO and Co-Founder of InSphero.

InSphero is a leading supplier of organotypic, biological in-vitro 3D microtissues for highly predictive drug testing. The company, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, currently counts 7 of the top ten global pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies as customers, and is helping them implement the company’s patent-pending microtissue technology in their development work-flow. The spin-off company of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich and the University Zurich was recognized for its scientific and commercial achievements with a number of national and international awards. It was awarded the CTI Start-up Label in 2010.