How Organ-on-Chip Tech and AI Are Transforming Drug Development

Editor's note: this interview was originally published on BioPharmInternational.com.

*Full transcript available below

In an interview with the Pharmaceutical Technology® group during CPHI Frankfurt, Silvia Scaglione, PhD, director of research at the National Research Council in Italy and founder of React4Life, an Italy-based biotech company specializing in organ-on-chip technology, spoke about the advancement of organ-on-chip platforms in bio/pharmaceutical R&D. Her insights reveal a transformational period in translational research and drug development, with the potential to reshape preclinical testing and personalized medicine globally.

In particular, organ-on-chip technology (such as React4Life’s platform) facilitates growth and analysis of patient-derived tissue samples. This capability enables researchers to potentially drastically reduce time, cost, and failure rates typically associated with traditional preclinical studies, Dr. Scaglione emphasizes.

How is organ-on-chip technology revolutionizing drug testing and personalized medicine?

“For the first time, it’s possible to reduce the time and cost typically spent during the preclinical stage, and, moreover, we can also reduce the failure in [the] clinical stage due to the wrong experimental setup,” Dr. Scaglione notes.

An important aspect of organ-on-chip technology is the ability to connect multiple organ models—such as gut, brain, and skin—which allows researchers tomimick complex human physiological interactions. This multi-organ connectivity enables researchers to assess drug efficacy holistically, observing not just local but also systemic impacts, Dr. Scaglione emphasizes.

The integration of the microbiome within the organ-on-chip system further enhances disease modeling, offering critical insights into how gut health influences drug responses, especially in cancer therapies, she explains.

Dr. Scaglione also champions the role of AI and in-silico methods in streamlining drug candidate selection. By combining machine learning with organ-on-chip platforms, companies like React4Life aim to set new benchmarks for accuracy and efficiency in drug discovery.

Click above to view the interview.

Dr. Scaglione spoke at CPHI Frankfurt on Oct. 28 in the session “Lightning Talk: Innovating the Future of Biologics R&D.” CPHI Frankfurt runs Oct. 28–30, 2025.

Click here for more conference coverage

About the speaker

Silvia Scaglione, PhD, Director of Research, CNR, and Chief Scientist, React4Life

Since 2010, Dr. Scaglione has been a permanent researcher at the National Council of Research in Italy, becoming a senior researcher in 2021 and leading the tissue engineering team. In 2017, she founded React4Life, an Italian biotech company that develops organ-on-chip technologies to accelerate translational research and improve the reliability of drug testing. React4Life has won several international projects and awards, including the EU Innovation Radar Award for Best Health Technology and the CPHI Award in 2023. Dr. Scaglione is also an ambassador for the European Innovation Council. She received her PhD in bioengineering from the University of Genoa (Italy) and was a visiting scientist at the University Hospital of Basel (Switzerland).

Transcript

Editor's note: This transcript is a direct, unedited rendering of the original audio/video content. It may contain errors, informallanguage, or omissions as spoken in the original recording.

Dr. Scaglione: I'm Silvia Scaglione. I'm a director of research at the National Research Council in Italy, and I also founder and chief scientist of React for Life, which is an Italian deep tech biotech company which developed and commercialized an organon a chip platform for translational research and drug testing.

PharmTech Group: What impact does the industry see from using dynamic human tissue systems in preclinical testing as alternatives to traditional in vivo methods?

Dr. Scaglione: The impact is really huge and amazing, because the use of dynamic human organ energy platform are really changing the use of and the adoption of alternative experimental model during pre clinical stage. Indeed, for the first time, it's possible to reduce the time and cost typically spent during the pre clinical stage, and moreover, we can also reduce the failure in clinical stage due to the wrong experimental setup. Moreover, we have also introduced something related to the personalized approach, because we can really host and grow personalized the patient derived tissue samples and testing different therapies for selecting the best therapy for that patient, for that disease. Soit's really a revolutionary impact.

PharmTech Group: How crucial is the ability of advanced models to enable precise controlover factors such as barrier function and mucus production and increasing the reliability and predictability of drug permeation data?

Dr. Scaglione: It's really important to have the possibility to control and quantify the readout during the use and adoption of organism platform, because just an example, when you use a gut on a chip platform, you have the possibility to measure the barrier function of the gut, and at the end, you can discriminate if you are working with a healthy tissue model versus an IBD or clone disease intestinal models, so the possibility to properly control measure and quantify the readout, enable to control the experiment, to decouple different behaviors and to discriminate healthy versus pathological diseases, And of course, related to these there is a possibility to properly quantify the efficacy of new treatments by analyzing the effect of this therapy on the tissue

PharmTech Group: Now, from an industry perspective, how does the integration of tissue models into multi organ systems, such as simulating the gut–skin axis, reshape the approach to testing efficacy for oral treatments?

Dr. Scaglione: It is really important to have the possibility to work with multi organ connections. Connection. That is what is possible using how our vivo, proprietary organ energy platform, because we can fluidically connect multiple organs like that versus skin, but also gut versus brain or gut cancer. And this is amazing, because for the first time, you can control and observe the effect of the therapy, not only on the localorgan, but using a holistic perspective, so analyzing, for instance, a therapy orally administered, but also evaluating its effect on a target tissue, it which might be far from the gut. And in this case, we can introduce a systemic approach, which is revolutionary for increasing the reliability of the readout.

PharmTech Group: Beyond accelerating general drug screening. What are the primary ways that validated tissue platforms are currently supporting innovation in the development of microbiome-based therapies?

Dr. Scaglione: Well, the microbiome modulates a lot of biological and pathological things in our in our body, so the possibility to introduce microbiome within the organon chip enable to unlock new testing and new complex disease modeling. Just an example. We have co culture gut microbiota into the gut on a chip platform, which was critically connected to the cancer model, and we have successfully demonstrated what it is observed in clinics, that is the fact that the dysbiosis in the gut might drastically reduce the efficacy of the anti cancer drug treatment, and this is due To the cross talk between microbial with local and systemic organs. I just

PharmTech Group: How is the biologic sector reimagining supply chains to protect against rising tariffs, geopoliticalshocks, and global disruptions?

Dr. Scaglione: This is really a critical point, because we have understanding that the geopolitical situation might also drastically affect industrial decision. What we have done in reactor Life is to internalize completely the supply chain. Soat the moment, the product of React for Life is fully made in Italy. So we have decided to select our supplier among the supplier of the Italy ecosystem, in order tofacilitate a more robust and stable relationship. I don't know if it's the same choice of pharma company, but for sure, this is what we have done.

PharmTech Group: And what role do AI and digital technologies play in accelerating drug discovery and improving manufacturing efficiency, and what are some unresolved barriers to full adoption of these technologies?

Dr. Scaglione: AI definitely is a key point, and in some cases, I will say alsoit's a buzz word used just because it's important and mandatory to be used in the drug testing. What, what is my experience is that it's really important to adopt also in silico approaches like machine learning AI based approaches, but also in the past, before the AI massive adoption drug testing has adopted in silico solutions during the drug testing to accelerate and improve the reliability of the selection of the niche and lead candidates.