Organovo Achieves One Month Performance, Drug Responsiveness for 3D Bioprinted Liver Tissues

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Organovo Holdings, Inc. (NYSE MKT: ONVO) ("Organovo"), a creator and manufacturer of functional, three-dimensional human tissues for medical research and therapeutic applications, today provided a summary of the data presented at the 3^rd Annual Cell Therapy Bioprocessing Conference in Bethesda, MD International Bioprocessing Conference on October 22, 2013.

Building on data first presented at the Experimental Biology conference in April 2013, the company presented data demonstrating retention of key liver functions in bioprinted tissues for up to 40 days, longer than one month.  Additional data presented at the Cell Therapy Bioprocessing Conference demonstrated that Organovo's 3D liver tissues exhibit dose-dependent responses to acetaminophen, a known liver toxicant, and that the toxic effects can be assessed using both standard screening assays and histopathological assessment of the treated tissue.  The data demonstrate that Organovo's 3D Liver tissue can potentially have value in assessing toxicology problems in human liver over a long period, including sub-acute and multiple dose effects. 

"This additional functional validation of Organovo's 3D Liver continues the demonstration of strong performance of these tissues," said Keith Murphy, Organovo's chief executive officer.  "In April we were able to show that liver function was retained in our 3D Liver for over five days, and we have now demonstrated that our tissues perform consistently for at least 40 days, a significant improvement over the average 48 hour performance of 2D cultures.  The stable, liver-specific functionality of 3D Liver is consistent with our observations that other NovoGen bioprinted tissues become fully cellular, steady state, living tissues that persist over time.  Furthermore, the fact that these tissues demonstrate similar activity to native liver when presented with a known challenge drug is an encouraging indication of utility in drug development."

The demonstration of extended function in Organovo's 3D liver tissues was achieved faster than Organovo's projected timeline of achieving these results by the end of 2013 and highlights progress in the development of a 3D Human Liver product, which is on track for launch in 2014. The company believes that a multi-cellular bioprinted 3D Liver system with extended life span in culture can provide superior results to current human cellular models and offer significant value to pharmaceutical researchers by enabling assessment of both biochemical and tissue responses.

About Organovo Holdings, Inc.:
Organovo (NYSE MKT: ONVO) designs and creates functional, three-dimensional human tissues for medical research and therapeutic applications. The Company is collaborating with pharmaceutical and academic partners to develop human biological disease models in three dimensions. These 3D human tissues have the potential to accelerate the drug discovery process, enabling treatments to be developed faster and at lower cost. In addition to numerous scientific publications, their technology has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, The Economist, and other outlets. Organovo is changing the shape of medical research and practice. Learn more at www.organovo.com or connect with us on Twitter.

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Any statements contained in this press release that do not describe historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on current expectations, but are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. The factors that could cause actual future results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties relating to the Company's ability to develop, market and sell products based on its technology; the expected benefits and efficacy of the Company's products and technology; and the Company's business, research, product development, regulatory approval, marketing and distribution plans and strategies. These and other factors are identified and described in more detail in our filings with the SEC, including our report on Form 10-KT filed with the SEC on May 24, 2013 and our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date that they were made. These cautionary statements should be considered with any written or oral forward-looking statements that we may issue in the future. Except as required by applicable law, including the securities laws of the United States, we do not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements to conform these statements to reflect actual results, later events or circumstances or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

SOURCE Organovo Holdings, Inc.