Emulate inaugurated its new headquarters and laboratories in February 2016. Credit: The Boston Redevelopment Authority.
The facility has a 20,000ft² total floor space. Credit: The Boston Redevelopment Authority.
Emulate's organs-on-chips technology is a new automated living human emulation system. Credit: Timothy Ruban / Wikimedia Commons.

US-based pharmaceutical company Emulate inaugurated a new headquarters and laboratory in Seaport District in Boston, Massachusetts, in February 2016.

Located in Emulate’s existing innovation and design building, the facility will be used as the company’s headquarters and to support commercial activities, product development and collaborative research programmes for its proprietary organs-on-chips technology.

This proprietary technology is designed to help predict the potential efficacy and safety of drug candidates and improve the drug development process.

The facility will accommodate 40 employees and can be expanded to house 85 employees in the future. Construction of the facility began in 2014 and was completed within 18 months. It was opened for commercial operations in February 2016.

Details of Emulate’s new headquarters in Boston

The headquarters is situated in an eight-storey building and has more than 20,000ft² of total floor space. It is expected to provide the next stage of evolution as Emulate moves towards the industry launch of its proprietary organ-chips technology within an automated human emulation system.

The facility is intended to encourage collaboration in Boston’s biotechnology hub of pharmaceutical and biotech companies by offering organs-on-chips technology.

It can be used to establish strategic collaborations to use organs-on-chips technology to develop more effective and safer drugs, consumer products and foods, as well as improving patient wellbeing through new precision medicine and personal health applications.

Details of Emulate’s organs-on-chips technology

Organs-on-chips technology is a new automated living human emulation system developed by Emulate. The technology knows the inner workings of human biology by providing researchers with ways to assess human responses with greater precision and detail.

An organ chip the size of a USB memory stick is made for the lung, liver, brain or kidney, containing tiny hollow channels lined with numerous living human cells and tissues.

This is a living, micro-engineered environment that recreates the natural physiology and mechanical forces that cells experience within the human body.

The lab-ready organic chips, instrumentation and software developed by Emulate will offer a system that supports the effective innovation, design and safety of products across a range of industries, including pharmaceuticals, agriculture, cosmetics, chemical-based consumer products and precision medicine.

Details of Emulate’s product portfolio and industry collaborators

“The proprietary technology is designed to help predict the potential efficacy and safety of drug candidates and improve the drug development process.”

Emulate produces a range of products based on the organs-on-chips technology, including lung chips, liver chips, intestine chips, kidney chips and brain chips. The chips are comprised of micro-engineered environments lined with living human cells and tissues.

Local industry collaborators for Emulate include the Johnson and Johnson Innovation Centre, Merck, and academic researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

Marketing commentary on Emulate

Based in Boston, Massachusetts, Emulate creates living products to understand how diseases, medicines, chemicals and foods affect human health.

The company claims its human emulation system sets a new standard for recreating true-to-life human biology, which is being used to advance product innovation, design and safety across various applications.

Emulate holds an exclusive license from Harvard University to a broad intellectual property portfolio for the organ-chips technology and related systems worldwide.