Humanity is now one step closer to realizing Star Trek-esque technology – 3D printing tissue patches to replace impaired biological functions and cure disease. Aspect Biosystems, a Radical Ventures portfolio company, has partnered with Novo Nordisk, a Danish multinational pharma company, to further develop Aspect’s groundbreaking technology. As part of a deal totalling US $2.6 billion in value, Novo Nordisk is paying Aspect US $75 million upfront to fund further research and development on four cell therapy candidates across diabetes and obesity, with each candidate potentially worth $650 million in milestone payments plus royalties.
Aspect’s vision is to build a 3D bioprinting platform that allows scientists to print biological structures that will cure disease. Today, the company combines advanced bio printing with computational design and computer vision to generate implants composed of living cells and tissue-like hydrogel polymers, then prints tissue devices in minutes in a sterile environment. Machine learning is central to scaling this process.
Radical Ventures led Aspect’s Series A round in January 2020, with strong conviction that bio-printed therapeutics would be a new category in regenerative medicine. The transformational partnership with Novo serves as validation that Aspect’s ability to reverse the effect of diseases in areas such as diabetes and obesity opens up the opportunity for additional therapeutic devices.
Aspect sits at the unique intersection of life sciences and Artificial Intelligence, which has the potential to cure diseases in ways that have never before been possible.
