Intero Biosystems, a Denver-based startup, is developing and selling human intestinal organoids, which are lab-grown tissues designed to mimic the human gut. These organoids are offered to pharmaceutical, biotech, food, and chemical companies for testing drugs and other compounds.
The company's flagship product, GastroScreen, consists of organoids approximately one millimeter across, shipped in batches of around 100. These can be used as healthy intestinal models or modified to simulate disease conditions. Intero also provides supplies for growing and working with the organoids, and conducts studies for customers, focusing on drug safety and disease research.
Founded in 2024, Intero Biosystems has seven employees and just under 10 customers, having raised a $2.3 million pre-seed round last year. The company reported more than $400,000 in revenue from the fourth quarter of last year through the third quarter of this year.
Regulatory changes, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) plans to reduce reliance on animal testing and its draft guidance on validating new approach methodologies (NAMs) for regulatory submissions, are driving interest in such alternatives. Intero co-founder and CTO Madeline Eiken noted that changes in U.S. law have made pharmaceutical companies more willing to explore technologies like organoids.
Intero is currently in the second stage of a three-stage validation process for GastroScreen, testing well-known drugs with documented human effects. The company plans to compare GastroScreen's results directly with pharmaceutical companies' existing animal and clinical data in the final stage.