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MUMBAI: Scientists from the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute for Research on Women’s Health and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay have developed India’s first indigenous placenta-on-chip platform, a laboratory device that recreates the biological gateway between mother and fetus. The findings were published on June 10 in the peer-reviewed journal Biofabrication, describing a system that reproduces hormone production, nutrient transport and waste clearance across a lab-grown placental barrier. The work was led by corresponding authors Professor Abhijit Majumder of IIT Bombay and Dr Deepak Modi of ICMR-NIRWoH, alongside co-authors Anshul Bhide, Sourav Mukherjee and Kinjalka Ghosh.
Solving an Organ That Cannot Be Studied Live
The placenta has long resisted direct scientific study and that difficulty explains why this development matters. Doctors cannot examine it during an active pregnancy without risking the fetus while a delivered placenta only shows its final, terminal state. Animal models offer a workaround, yet mice and humans differ enough in placental structure that results rarely translate cleanly. This is precisely why the STRIDER clinical trial ran into trouble. Researchers tested sildenafil to improve blood flow in high-risk pregnancies, only for a cluster of neonatal deaths tied to a human-specific lung condition to force the trial’s suspension in 2018. Animal testing had given no warning. The Indian team built its chip specifically to close that gap, using a porous membrane to separate a maternal chamber from a fetal one, then growing human placental and blood vessel cells on either side to recreate the barrier’s natural filtering behaviour.
A Simpler Design Built for Wider Use
What sets this device apart from comparable platforms abroad is its deliberate simplicity. Global competitors, including a UC San Diego bioprinted model and the Netherlands-based MIMETAS OrganoPlate, tend to rely on active perfusion systems or advanced bioprinting equipment. India’s version instead uses passive, diffusion-driven transport within a standard multi-well plate, fabricated through laser-cut acrylic and silicone bonding rather than specialised bioprinters. That choice trades some technical sophistication for something arguably more valuable in the Indian context, which is affordability and compatibility with equipment most local labs already own. The chip has already demonstrated glucose transport ratios that closely match measurements taken from real human placentas, alongside the ability to simulate gestational diabetes by exposing the barrier to elevated glucose without breaking down its structure.
Regulatory Doors Have Already Opened
None of this would carry commercial weight without a matching shift in regulation and that shift has already happened. India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation amended its clinical trial rules in 2023 to formally accept organ-on-chip data and other non-animal methods in drug safety dossiers. A further update in January this year streamlined import rules for materials used in this kind of non-clinical testing. The United States moved along a similar path when its FDA Modernization Act 2.0 dropped the decades-old legal requirement for animal testing and the agency has since accepted at least one liver-chip platform under its ISTAND program. Taken together, these changes mean a validated placenta-on-chip result could eventually sit inside a real regulatory submission rather than remaining a laboratory curiosity.
Why the Business Case Matters
For India’s pharmaceutical industry, already the world’s largest supplier of generic medicines, the commercial logic is straightforward. More than 90% of promising drug candidates fail somewhere in clinical development, often because animal testing missed a toxicity that only shows up in humans. A validated homegrown testing platform could let drug developers catch fetal safety risks earlier and more cheaply, particularly since pregnant women are routinely excluded from clinical trials, leaving doctors to prescribe medicines during pregnancy with limited safety data to rely on. The market opportunity is also expanding fast. Global organ-on-chip technology was valued between $210 million and $227 million last year and is projected to grow past $1.9 billion within the next decade, with Asia-Pacific expected to lead that expansion.
The Road From Lab Bench to Licence
Turning a peer-reviewed paper into a commercial tool is rarely instant, though IIT Bombay does have a structured path for it. Patent filing for the underlying chip design is currently underway, backed by funding from the Science and Engineering Research Board. Should the researchers choose to spin off a startup, IIT Bombay’s Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship would provide incubation support, drawing on a track record of more than 500 startups and over a billion dollars in investor funding raised through the centre. What remains unclear for now is whether any Indian pharmaceutical company or contract research organisation has begun discussions to trial the platform commercially. That answer, when it arrives will likely determine how quickly this laboratory breakthrough turns into an everyday tool for drug safety testing.
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