Liver-on-a-Chip Drug Metabolism Platform LiverChip Gains EMA Recognition: New Drug Preclinical Testing No Longer Relies on Animal Experiments

Dutch organ-on-a-chip company Emulates LiverChip platform received conditional endorsement from the European Medicines Agency in late October, becoming the first organ-on-a-chip system incorporated into drug approval reference data. LiverChip cultures human liver cells on a microfluidic chip to simulate the bodys hepatic drug metabolism process.

In comparative validation against traditional animal experiments, LiverChip achieved a 91% accuracy rate in predicting hepatotoxicity for 327 approved drugs, exceeding the 74% rate of rat models. The EMA stated that pharmaceutical companies may substitute LiverChip data for certain animal toxicity studies during the preclinical stage.

Novartis and AstraZeneca have announced plans to incorporate LiverChip data in 2029 drug submissions. Emulate estimates the platform can save approximately 8 million euros per drug in animal experimentation costs annually.