Product Adoption Case No. 7 [The University of Tokyo] Contribution to New Drug Development

Aiming to shorten the development period and reduce the development costs of new drugs through the creation of a device that replicates the human intestinal environment!

In 2018, the Sakai-Nishikawa Laboratory of the Department of Chemical System Engineering at the University of Tokyo was developing a device called "Intestinal MPS (Microphysiological System)" to replicate the human intestinal environment as part of a human mimicry project promoted by AMED. To recreate blood flow and peristaltic movement in the intestinal tract within plates used for culturing iPS cells for drug discovery experiments, the laboratory initially handmade prototypes or requested trials from pharmaceutical manufacturers. However, they could not find a company capable of producing complex prototypes that required intricate control and had no plans for mass production. They then consulted Takasago Electric Industry, which specializes in microfluidic control and small-batch, customized production. For the reproduction of blood flow, they utilized a perfusion device (a culture apparatus that continuously flows culture medium) that had already been developed in-house. However, there were no valves that could operate at the required speed for simulating peristaltic movement, so they came up with the idea of using a valve to send air into the plate and move the culture membrane using air pressure, leading to trial and error. Finally, in January 2019, they successfully combined a micro needle valve capable of flow adjustment with a quantitative pump, enabling them to move the culture membrane at the requested speed.

valve