ORGANOVO HOLDINGS, INC. Organovo Holdings, Inc. announced that it has successfully advanced the use of its first inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) model and has achieved the next milestone, target validation. The company announced in May 2022 that it had achieved a successful Crohn's disease model that demonstrates key aspects of patient biology that differ from a non-diseased state and that the model would be used to find and characterize therapeutics. The Crohn's disease model has since been utilized to understand the biology of disease and identify specific gene targets.
Treating some of those targets, by introducing a compound directly to the 3D tissue model that affects the target, has now been shown to reproducibly reduce disease. Multiple targets are now considered validated, and they represent specific druggable opportunities that the company plans to leverage. Organovo plans to advance at least one target program to medicinal chemistry by the end of 2022 to build a proprietary new drug for Crohn's disease.
More than 1 million people in North America suffer from Crohn's and its prevalence is increasing globally. Because of its progressive nature, more than 70% will require at least one surgical intervention to relieve symptoms. Current drugs can slow progression in about 50% of patients, but none are curative. Defects in the intestinal lining and inflammation can lead to abdominal pain, severe diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss, malnutrition, and lower quality of life.
Chronic inflammation leads to ulcers, fistulas and bowel obstructions caused by fibrosis. Organovo believes that its 3D tissue technologies are well suited to drug and target discovery in IBD because they contain a functional intestinal epithelium that is affected by disease and a stromal layer demonstrating disease-dependent fibrosis, key targets for therapy. The drug discovery process using 3D tissues consists of several stages.
Two early steps that are uniquely important in Organovo's approach to drug discovery are creation of a disease model followed by target discovery and validation.
