Fierce Biotech: Organoids touted as future of brain disorder R&D as AxoSim scoops up tech from Vyant subsidiary

As Vyant Bio continues its wind-down, the neuroscience research assets of its subsidiary StemoniX have officially been picked up by AxoSim, a New Orleans-based drug discovery biotech.

In an Oct. 24 press release, AxoSim said it had closed a previously announced all-cash, $2.25 million deal with Vyant to buy the company’s microBrain technology along with a 14,000-square-foot research and development manufacturing facility near Minneapolis, nine patents and their associated intellectual property, and the team of scientists that helped develop microBrain.

“Our goal of delivering human data faster to transform neurological R&D takes a major step forward with the addition of the microBrain platform, team and facilities,” AxoSim CEO and co-founder Lowry Curley, Ph.D., said in today’s release.

MicroBrain’s platform consists of 2D and 3D human brain organoids—microscopic masses of cells that resemble and function like the organ they represent—coupled with analytic software. Mixtures of astrocytes and neurons grown from a single donor’s stem cells, the cultures can be used to study how different chemicals affect the brain’s electrical activity.

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