Arrakis Bio's demonstrated the future of True Human ECM in Organoid 3d culture

The NAM revolution is almost here but it is missing a critical piece. The ECM hasn't caught up yet.

NAMSs like organoids, spheroids, organ-on-a-chip, and microphysiological systems hold enormous promise for replacing animal testing and generating more human-relevant data. Yet a foundational component of these models is often overlooked: the extracellular matrix (ECM).

Most in vitro NAM models rely on animal-derived ECM, rat-tail collagen and Matrigel, or on synthetic alternatives. Both fall short of the NAM vision. If we are serious about building human-relevant models, every component needs to be human-relevant. The ECM is no exception.

That shift starts now.

In 5 years, using rat-tail collagen or mice-derived Matrigel in a human organoid model will seem as outdated as testing drugs on animals. 

At Arrakis Bio, we believe True Human Collagen is the missing piece for a true human ECM.

We're proud to share early results from our collaboration with Tissue Dynamics, who tested our human collagen as a scaffold for organoid culture — benchmarked against rat-tail collagen they had been using previously. The organoids cultured in human collagen performed comparably in size across both time points, demonstrating that human-derived ECM can fully support complex 3D culture systems.

This is just the beginning. Replacing animal-derived ECM with truly human-relevant materials is not just a technical improvement — it is a necessary step toward realizing the full potential of NAMs.

We're excited to keep pushing this frontier forward, together with partners who share this vision.