Journal article

Impact of organ-on-a-chip technology on pharmaceutical R&D costs

Nora Franzen, Wim H van Harten, Valesca P Retel, Peter Loskill, Janny van den Eijnden-van Raaij, Maarten IJzerman

DRUG DISCOVERY TODAY | ELSEVIER SCI LTD | Published : 2019

Abstract

Healthcare systems are faced with the challenge of providing innovative treatments, while shouldering high drug costs that pharmaceutical companies justify by the high costs of R&D. An emergent technology that could transform R&D efficiency is organ-on-a-chip. The technology bridges the gap between preclinical testing and human trials through better predictive models, significantly impacting R&D costs. Here, we present an expert survey on the future role of organ-on-a-chip in drug discovery and its potential quantitative impact. We find that the technology has the potential to reduce R&D costs significantly, driven by changes in direct costs, success rates and the length of the R&D process. ..

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Grants

Awarded by EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program


Funding Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the 17 experts for their willingness and time to give interviews for the impact study. The authors would like to thank Massimo Mastrangeli (TU Delft, The Netherlands) and Sylvie Millet (CEA, Grenoble, France) for their support in defining the experts for the interviews; and Adele Tufford for her help with the review of the manuscript. Finally, we would like to express our sincere gratitude for the support of the ORCHID consortium to this research. This project has received funding from the EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 766884.