The 143rd Annual Meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan (Sapporo)

Organizer: Tomomi Furihata, Maho Okubo

Microphysiological systems (MPS) are generally known as advanced in vitro culture systems using single or multiple types of cells in an in vivo mimetic manner, and they are expected to provide significant beneficial impacts on drug discovery, such as improvement of data extrapolability to humans and reduction of animal use. To accelerate MPS developments for their implementation into drug development studies, we need to build concrete consensus on their usability, quality and applicability through deeper communication among all stakeholders. With these background in mind, this symposium aims to creating consensus views and future milestones on development and use of MPS in drug development studies. To these ends, Dr. Furihata will talk about an industry-academia collaboration work for development of human blood-brain barrier MPS, and Dr. Kojima will present a unique technology enabling to produce customizable spheroids-on-demand. Dr. Yamamoto will introduce a new type of a lung MPS based on a unique iPS differentiation technique to respiratory cells. Furthermore, Dr, Taniguchi will summarize the current status and perspectives on cell-based methods, including MPS, in non-clinical safety pharmacology studies. Finally, Dr. Okubo will show the practical impacts of automation technology on MPS-based assay systems in pharmaceutical companies. Through these talks, we would like to draw a future path toward the implementation of MPS in drug discovery research.