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Intero Biosystems Wants Drugmakers to Test on Mini Human Intestines, Not Animals

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Intero Biosystems Wants Drugmakers to Test on Mini Human Intestines,
Not Animals
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Intero Biosystems, a Denver-based startup that spun out of the University of Michigan, is developing human intestinal organoids, lab-grown tissue that mimics the gut, as a way to study how drugs and other compounds affect the human body before they are tested in people. Its flagship product, GastroScreen, contains multiple cell and tissue types found in the human intestine and is sold to pharmaceutical, biotech, food, and chemical companies for testing. Regulatory changes in the United States, including FDA plans to reduce reliance on animal testing and draft guidance on validating new approach methodologies (NAMs), have increased industry interest in organoid technology.

Key Highlights
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  • GastroScreen organoids are about 1 millimeter across and are shipped roughly 100 at a time; customers can use them as healthy intestinal models or induce disease-like conditions to test compound responses.
  • Unlike intestinal models grown from tissue collected through procedures such as colonoscopies, GastroScreen is derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, which can be generated from a blood sample, enabling personalization and easier scaling.
  • Founded in 2024, the company has seven employees and just under 10 customers after raising a $2.3 million pre-seed round, and generated more than $400,000 in revenue from the fourth quarter of last year through the third quarter of this year.
  • GastroScreen is in the second stage of a three-stage validation process; it has shown expected responses to drugs that reduce intestinal inflammation and to compounds known to damage the gut, and comparison studies against pharmaceutical companies’ existing animal and clinical data are underway.
  • In April 2025, the FDA laid out plans to reduce its reliance on animal testing, promoting organoids, organs-on-chips, and AI-based computational models, and in March 2026 issued draft guidance on how drug developers should validate NAMs for regulatory submissions.
  • Intero plans to license biological datasets generated from its organoids to pharmaceutical and AI companies, is automating manufacturing toward hundreds of thousands of organoids per batch, and aims eventually at personalized medicine and an artificial intestine.
  • Competitors in human-relevant gut models include Altis Biosystems, InSphero, and MIMETAS.
  • Intero was one of 20 startups competing at TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Battlefield in October 2026.

Statements
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Most drugs fail clinical trials, and I think it’s pretty easy to appreciate that we are neither mice nor flat layers of cells.

  • Madeline Eiken, co-founder and CTO, Intero Biosystems

We’re literally shipping mini living organs in the mail to people.

  • Charlie Childs, co-founder and CEO, Intero Biosystems

About the Organizations
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Intero Biosystems is a Denver-based biotech startup, founded in 2024, developing human intestinal organoid models for drug and compound testing.
TechCrunch is a technology news publication covering startups, venture capital, and the tech industry.

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Article: Intero Biosystems Wants Drugmakers to Test on Mini Human Intestines, Not Animals
Intero Biosystems: GastroScreen