Vivodyne introduces revolutionary ai-powered biotech labs to transform drug discovery. A biotech startup, Vivodyne, has launched an innovative approach to address the data limitations in AI drug discovery with their HIVE, modular robotic labs. These labs, capable of growing 20 types of human tissue, autonomously monitor and generate essential biological data for AI models - data traditionally derived from less accurate animal tests or single-cell studies. * Problem Addressed: Current AI models lack accurate human biological data, hindering progress in drug discovery and leading to ineffective outcomes, such as curing diseases in animals but not humans. * Vivodyne's Solution: CEO Andrei Georgescu explains that HIVE aims to fill these data gaps by generating human-relevant causal data, crucial for training AI models capable of intricate, real-world biological predictions. * Industry Impact: This development is set against a backdrop of ongoing debates on AI's role in curing diseases, with industry leaders like Sam Altman and Demis Hassabis making broad claims yet noting limited tangible outcomes so far. * Vivodyne's Milestones: Spun out from the University of Pennsylvania, Vivodyne recently established the largest 'human data center', raising nearly $80 million to expand their operations. Their innovative labs achieve twice the throughput compared to U.S. animal trials. * Greater Vision: The startup hopes to change the paradigm of drug creation from experimental to causality-driven, aiding in the development of combination therapies for complex diseases, enhancing the reliability of drug approval predictions, much like automotive crash tests predict safety standards. * Current and Future Steps: Although it hasn't disclosed its partners, Vivodyne is collaborating with major pharmaceutical companies to revolutionize the path to drug development, potentially transforming the healthcare landscape with AI and advanced biotechnological integration.

Robotic 'hives' grow human tissue for 3 million drug tests a year, cutting need for lab mice. Wyatt Fischer Tue, August 18, 2026 at 9:24 AM PDT A Bay Area startup is taking a shot at ending animal testing, one of medicine's most persistent humanitarian and logistical problems. Drugs that appear promising in mice can fall apart once they reach humans, not to mention the suffering the animals endure. Its solution is a fleet of robotic "hives" that grow human tissue and run millions of experiments designed to catch failures long before people enter costly clinical trials. Here's what to know. According to Fast Company, Vivodyne operates south of San Francisco and is building an automated system intended to replace animal testing. Instead of making mice the primary proving ground for new medicines, the company uses mini-labs filled with living human tissue and relies on AI-designed experiments. As Fast Company noted, nearly 90% of clinical trials still fail even after a drug has passed animal testing. That gap suggests animal models often do a poor job of forecasting how human bodies will respond. The company says it has expanded to 12 robotic labs, which it calls "hives." The setup can support controlled studies on more than 3 million human tissues a year, about twice the combined capacity of all U.S. clinical trials. Work in the system begins with human cells, which can be obtained through a simple blood draw. From there, the cells are grown on "biological chips," where they form tissue structures complete with blood vessels and immune cells that resemble parts of organs, including the liver and kidney. More background. Animal studies have long been a routine checkpoint in drug development, despite their uneven record as a guide to how treatments will perform in people. A system built around human tissue could help drugmakers answer critical questions much earlier. Human tissue testing may help better determine if a treatment seems safe, if it affects the target tissue the way researchers expect, and whether there are warning signs that would otherwise surface only after enormous sums have already been spent. When trials fail late in development, the costs can be staggering, and those setbacks can delay the arrival of better medicines for patients who need them. There is also an ethical dimension. If human-tissue platforms become more accurate and scalable, they could reduce the need for animals in laboratories while improving the odds that therapies moving forward are actually relevant to human biology. What's being done? What sets Vivodyne apart is the effort to do this at industrial volume. Rather than making only a small number of organ-like samples for limited studies, the company is using robotics to produce tissues at scale and run thousands of tightly controlled tests in parallel. Within that automated workflow, the platform can administer drugs, disable genes, and measure tissue reactions. The result is a broader pool of data than traditional methods typically allow, making it easier to compare outcomes and flag ambiguity before a treatment reaches the clinic. "You have these clinical trials where there's hundreds of millions of dollars at stake... and then it fails because of some ambiguity that you could not have checked," Vivodyne CEO Andrei Georgescu said. Get TCD's free newsletters for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here.

Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla says AI is generating a "hyperabundance of potential new drugs", but testing methods remain outdated. In a post on X, Khosla criticised the continued reliance on animal testing, calling it "18th-century style". He highlighted Vivodyne, a biotechnology company testing drugs using living human tissues at industrial scale. Khosla said he is working with Vivodyne on its "Virtual Human" data centre to predict patient treatment responses. The comments follow recent AI developments in drug discovery. Anthropic launched Claude Science for scientific research, whilst Takeda reported positive trial results for its AI-developed psoriasis drug. Nvidia and Eli Lilly announced a $1 billion AI co-innovation lab for drug development.