Intero Biosystems ships living mini-intestines to replace animal testing

The startup’s flagship product, GastroScreen, consists of one-millimeter organoids derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. Unlike models grown from colonoscopy tissue, this method allows for easier scaling and the potential for patient-specific testing. Co-founder and CEO Charlie Childs explains that the company currently ships these living tissues in batches of 100, providing clients with the supplies and custom experimental designs needed to test drug safety or disease responses in a human-relevant environment.

Regulatory momentum is fueling this shift, as the FDA moves to reduce reliance on animal models. While the agency has not endorsed specific technologies, it has issued guidance on validating non-animal methods, making pharmaceutical firms more receptive to incorporating organoids into their pipelines. Intero is currently navigating a three-stage validation process, testing GastroScreen against known human drug responses to prove its predictive power. With seven employees and over $400,000 in recent revenue, the startup now aims to automate manufacturing to produce hundreds of thousands of organoids per batch, eventually licensing biological datasets to AI developers and advancing toward personalized medicine.