Frontier Bio

Frontier Bio is a tissue engineering company developing lab-grown human tissues from human cells, with a long-term aim of producing on-demand organs. Its current commercial activity centers on human-based tissue models and tissue engineering services sold to customers running research that has traditionally relied on animal studies, including drug development, medical device testing, and disease modeling. Example work includes a customer project developing a "brain-on-a-chip" model for traumatic brain injury research, and lab-grown lung microtissue that the company is working to scale to larger sizes.

The company's first planned implantable product is a tissue-engineered blood vessel intended for use as a vascular graft in cardiovascular disease and trauma, including peripheral artery disease. The approach uses a bioresorbable scaffold seeded at the bedside with the patient's own stem cells, which the body is intended to remodel into a natural blood vessel, avoiding immune rejection and long manufacturing lead times. Frontier Bio positions this against synthetic vascular grafts, which it describes as a roughly $2B market with a 65% failure rate within two years of implantation, and against autologous vessel harvesting, which is invasive, limited in supply, and lengthens surgeries. The company states its platform is also applicable to kidney, liver, heart, and lung tissues.

Founding story

CEO Eric Bennett is a biomedical engineer and serial entrepreneur who invented a blood vessel fabrication technique and previously served as CTO at Aether, where he developed low-cost 3D bioprinters; his background spans brain-machine interfacing, optogenetics, microfluidics, DNA assembly, and tissue engineering. CTO Sam Pashneh-Tala completed a PhD and fellowship at the University of Sheffield on tissue-engineered blood vessels for clinical and in vitro applications and previously ran a tissue engineering and medical device design consultancy.

Business model

Frontier Bio sells lab-grown human tissue products and tissue engineering services to organizations conducting research that would otherwise use animals, while developing implantable tissue products, beginning with vascular grafts, for future clinical use. Revenue from the tissue models and services platform is presented as funding progress toward the implantable and organ programs.

Most revenue is generated by developing tissue products and providing tissue engineering services for customers, alongside non-dilutive grant funding such as a National Science Foundation SBIR award.

Traction

The company reports approximately $5.2M in cumulative sales of tissues and tissue engineering services, an NSF SBIR grant, work with organizations including Mayo Clinic and Intuitive Surgical, and selection as a Phase 1 winner of the NIH Complement-ARIE NAMs Challenge.

Latest developments

Frontier Bio was named a Phase 1 winner of the NIH Complement-ARIE New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) Challenge and highlights recent FDA and NIH moves away from animal testing as relevant to its tissue model business. Its Reg D 506(c) offering hosted by Capital R (OpenDeal Broker LLC) had a deadline of January 27, 2025.