By Jim Shamp | This article originally appeared via NCBiotech’s blog
Three research scientist entrepreneurs with roots in university labs and life sciences startup companies have announced formation of what they deem “the first AI-powered cell manufacturing platform,” a Chapel Hill-based company they’ve named iOrganBio.
The founders recently issued a news release announcing their company’s emergence from stealth mode after establishing it in 2024. The headquarters is in Suite 300 of the BioLabs facility on Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill.
They’re launching with $2 million in seed funding “to transform how human cells are made.” The goal is to transform the way therapeutics are developed, bypassing animal testing and creating cell-based lab tests for highly focused pairing of individuals’ health problems and their unique, customized solutions.
The investment round was led by First Star Ventures along with institutional investors IndieBio, Cape Fear BioCapital, 2ndF, Terasaki Institute, and Alix Ventures.
Making product with CellForge system
iOrganBio said its proprietary CellForge platform combines AI-driven prediction with high-throughput experimental control to engineer cells and organoids across multiple high-value areas spanning drug discovery, manufacturing, and cell therapies.
Organoids are tiny lab-grown 3D stem cell-based tissue cultures that closely resemble the structure and function of human organs.
The company says it’s changing the way human cells are engineered and deployed across applications, enabling predictable, reproducible, and scalable outcomes across a wide range of cell types originating from stem cells and peripheral blood cells. It says its approach could help its biopharma customers accelerate disease modeling, regenerative medicine activities, and drug development.
According to one of the co-founders, CEO Daniel Delubac, Ph.D., “The future of human health depends on our ability to intelligently design human cells and organoids with the same precision and reliability we expect from any other industrialized process. With CellForge, we are seeking to create a new standard for cell manufacturing—one that is configurable, reproducible, and scalable, and adapted to living products.”
CEO has Triangle roots
Delubac is a veteran of several life sciences companies, including service from 2020 to 2023 as the COO and CTO of another RTP biotech, a precision oncology company in Durham. He subsequently moved to Scotland with Chemify but returned to the Triangle to help establish iOrganBio when his wife received a faculty appointment at UNC.
The other co-founders are Shuibing Chen, Ph.D., of the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, and Xiling Shen, Ph.D., professor at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, an associate professor emeritus of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and former director of the Woo Center for Big Data and Precision Health at Duke University.
At the core of CellForge is the company’s trademarked Functional Human CellAtlas, which iOrganBio describes as “a comprehensive and growing repository of human cell data derived from single-cell RNA sequencing and other high-resolution profiling methods.”
iOrganBio says this foundation allows CellForge to guide cell development with unparalleled precision. Customers can target specific cell states and use them to guide the design and manufacturing of tissues and organoids at both the population and single-cell level. The result is precision and reliability for any process or application that relies on human cells, from model development to therapeutic production.
The company says CellForge can be applied in a myriad of contexts to generate advanced tissue models and innovative cell therapies. It has already been successfully used to pinpoint specific beta islet cells to guide organoid and tissue design, enabling pancreas models with tailored properties, such as optional vasculature and immune competency for disease modeling, drug testing, and regenerative applications.
Advancing drug discovery, patient care
“As a scientist, one of the most rewarding moments is seeing your discoveries move beyond the lab and begin transforming how we use human cells in the real world,” said Chen, who is also a board member and senior scientific advisor of iOrganBio. “By scaling the engineering of cells that reflect true human biology, we’re opening the door to breakthroughs across drug discovery and patient care.”
Drew Volpe, founding partner of First Star Ventures, added, “Pharma has long needed human-relevant models that can reliably predict how therapies will work in the clinic. The level of engineering precision by iOrganBio’s technology uniquely positions the company to become an indispensable partner. Their digital-first approach, grounded in AI and data, will dramatically reduce costs and accelerate the path from idea to therapy.”
NC provides fertile life sciences environment for startups
Delubac said Chapel Hill offers an ideal environment for iOrganBio to establish its roots.
“It has exceptional facilities for startups, especially at the BioLabs — a new facility in the heart of Chapel Hill, a college town, second to none in equipment, cost and quality of life. Support here is personalized to each startup, and they offer lots of flexibility to adapt to individual needs,” Delubac said.
“We also have amazing access to public authorities from the state who are engaged, supportive, and motivated to see the (life sciences) ecosystem flourish. We have a high density of biotechs, from startups to scale-ups to big companies, who all want to be here, stay here, and grow together in a collegial spirit of partnership.”
Delubac also cited the importance of early-stage funding and other support facilitated by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the Center for Economic Development, and world-class universities training students in the most advanced and complex subjects across engineering and the sciences.
“These institutions house innovative scientists maturing some of the most transformative technologies toward commercial readiness — the roots of innovation,” he said. “We have an incredibly talented workforce here, strongly motivated to contribute to major advances in healthcare and health-related technologies. We hope to continue building North Carolina as the hub for biomanufacturing innovation startups.”
