CELLada, Inc. Files IPO Prospectus Targeting Automation and Standardization Gaps in the Emerging Organoid Industry

The organoid and organ-on-a-chip sector has just experienced a year of rapid advancement, yet beneath the fervor, many gaps remain to be filled—Technically, it still remains in a state of high labor intensity and low throughput. Overall, it lacks a standardized system, modular service models, and clear business models and application scenarios.

“Automation and standardization are the most critical challenges to address in organoid research.” Automation is the first step toward achieving standardization. Many companies and research teams have recognized this bottleneck and are actively developing or seeking more efficient automated tools.

Among the numerous entrants are tech companies that have already made significant strides in automation and intelligence, as well as research teams that have long been deeply engaged in the field of organoids.Beijing Sailada Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “CELLada”), established in August 2021, is a prime example. It was jointly founded by Megarobo, an innovative technology company specializing in robotic automation and artificial intelligence R&D, and a Peking University research team focused on metabolism and organoids, led by Professor Zheng Lemin, Deputy Director of the Peking University Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences. The company has successfully developed an automated organoid workstation.

To gain insights into the current progress of Sailada’s automated organoid workstation, VCBeat New Medicine spoke with Dr. Li Jingyu, CEO of Sailada.

Megarobo has been dedicated to the life sciences sector for many years. Its independently developed MegaKunpeng Laboratory, the first general-purpose intelligent automated biological laboratory in China, has established automated platforms for diverse biological scenarios, including the MegaCell fully automated cell experimentation platform, the MegaMolecule fully automated molecular experimentation platform, the MegaMicro ultra-high-throughput fully automated viral nucleic acid detection system, and the MegaOmics intelligent automated platform for omics sample preparation. Additionally, the MegaKunpeng Laboratory is equipped with IntellVega, Megarobo’s proprietary AI vision platform centered on robotics, 2D and 3D machine vision, and deep learning.

Sailada serves as Megarobo’s vanguard in the field of organoids. Its core technology is derived from Megarobo’s automated systems, which have accumulated five to six years of technical expertise, along with technological support from Megarobo’s mechanical automation and artificial intelligence teams.Building on megarobo’s technologies and equipment, Beijing Sailada Biotechnology Co., Ltd. has integrated various automated devices required for experimental workflows through a highly intelligent scheduling engine, further developing an automated organoid workstation.

“Megarobo provides the technology, while Peking University Health Science Center provides the knowledge. This interdisciplinary background enables Sailada to advance more rapidly,” said Li Jingyu. Automation and intelligence are her areas of interest, as she has witnessed firsthand how tool improvements can have a disruptive impact on research efficiency. As one of the early adopters of next-generation sequencing (NGS) instruments, she observed how Illumina sequencers significantly reduced sequencing costs: the first generation of gene sequencing technology cost $3 billion to obtain most of the human genome sequence. By 2008, the cost of whole-genome sequencing had dropped to $200,000; today, it is under $1,000, with the entire genome sequence completed in just one day.

It was not until a paper prompted her to make a complete pivot to the field of “research automation.” In March 2012, an article published in Nature by C. Glenn Begley, then Vice President of Global Oncology Research at Amgen, showed thatOnly 6 of the 53 key scientific findings in oncology could be replicated, representing a mere 11%.(Nature volume 483, pages 531–533 (2012)). These shocking data have prompted many researchers to question whether our basic research is sufficiently rigorous. Why do so many projects that appear promising in the laboratory exhibit such high failure rates during clinical development?

To address this question, Dr. Li Jingyu embarked on explorations in the field of reproducible experimentation. Transitioning from academia to industry, she gradually came to understand the significance of leveraging industrial products to enable standardized experiments. In July 2022, Dr. Li joined Sailada, an organoid company incubated by Megarobo, as its CEO.

Upon taking office, Li Jingyu streamlined the company’s positioning and business operations, emphasizing Sailada’s role as an upstream-to-midstream player in the organoid industry chain and clarifying its strategy to establish extensive collaborations with downstream companies. Sailada’s business began to focus on standardized organoid products. “We need to concentrate on overcoming the challenges within the overall standard operating procedures for organoids and design products accordingly.”

To date, Sailada has successfully established a demo platform for automated organoid culture. It has developed dozens of high-value organoid models, including cardiac organoids with two-chamber pulsation and distinct chamber structures, brain organoids featuring ventricles and well-defined neural tissue architecture, retinal organoids containing cone and rod cells, cerebral hypoxia/ischemia organoids, alcoholic/non-alcoholic liver disease organoids, and tumor organoids that preserve the immune microenvironment. In total, standardized culture systems for more than 20 types of organ tissues have been realized.

Sailada continuously develops reagents and consumables to optimize organoid culture and applications, complemented by intelligent software that supports standardized culture systems for the identification, evaluation, and subsequent functional characterization of organoids. This constantly updated and optimized automated organoid culture platform offers significantly improved stability and uniformity compared to manual operations, and has received widespread acclaim from collaborative clients.

“Manual operation is a primary cause of poor stability. For instance, the duration of manual liquid exchange varies with each iteration, whereas on an automated workstation, the liquid exchange time is pre-set, the environment is stable, and there are fewer variables, thereby significantly enhancing stability,” shared Dr. Li Jingyu.

Furthermore, stringent control over laboratory consumables and reagents is critically important. Matrix gels and cytokines used in cell culture are biological products derived from living organisms; variations between batches can lead to inconsistent outcomes in the final product. Additionally, factors such as pore size and anti-adhesion properties of consumables can also impact results. At Beijing Sailada Biotechnology Co., Ltd., all externally procured consumables supplied by upstream vendors undergo rigorous quality control before being officially stocked. This includes trial cultures to confirm their suitability, with only those passing inspection accepted into inventory.

Unforeseen challenges often arise during the construction of automated systems. For instance, organoids are often too small in size, making them prone to being lost during robotic handling. To address this issue, Beijing Sailada Biotechnology Co., Ltd. has designed specialized consumables and protocols. Another critical challenge lies in the selection and optimization of equipment for identification purposes. In an interview with VCBeat New Medicine, Dr. Li Jingyu stated, “Traditional drug sensitivity testing for organoids relies on microplate readers, which require large sample volumes. In practice, it is difficult to obtain sufficient samples for such assays. Even when feasible, the margin of error remains significant. We are currently developing a platform that enables high-throughput screening without requiring large sample volumes, and we believe it will be launched soon.”

Currently, the automated organoid culture demo platform developed by Sailada can culture various types of organoids, including tumor, cardiac, and brain organoids, achieving high-throughput, unmanned cultivation of 50 plates per run.

How Can Technological Innovation in Every Company Become the Driving Force Behind Sector Growth? CEOs familiar with foreign business environments often recognize that many overseas companies embrace openness, further refining their technologies through extensive collaboration while also generating revenue by leveraging industrial ecosystems.

“In the early stages of an industry, it is essential to unite and expand the overall market. Even a 1% share of a larger market is more valuable than a 10% share of a smaller one.“Li Jingyu believes that companies in the organoid sector need to establish extensive collaborations, leverage each other’s strengths, and build an industrial ecosystem to collectively expand the market.”

Last September, Sailada and the Sike Electrophysiology Research Institute officially announced a long-term strategic partnership. The Sike Electrophysiology Research Institute provides valuable supplementation to Sailada’s organoids in drug toxicity testing. For instance, in cardiac organoids, it is necessary not only to assess the cytotoxic effects of drugs but also to verify whether they affect cardiac action potentials. Conditions such as ventricular fibrillation and arrhythmia are indicators of drug toxicity; although they may not cause cell death, they negatively impact organ function. Therefore, electrophysiological assessment is an essential component for realizing the functional utility of organoids.

Sailada’s decision to settle in Suzhou ATLATL Accelerator was also driven by this consideration. As an ecosystem platform, ATLATL brings together numerous enterprises across the upstream, midstream, and downstream segments of the organoid industry. At ATLATL, Sailada connected with upstream cytokine manufacturers and complementary companies such as Bozhen Gezhi, and has already established further collaborations with multiple enterprises.

Currently, Sailada adopts a business model centered on products, supplemented by services. Its initial product offerings included assay kits and laboratory consumables, with a series of laboratory instruments equipped with corresponding technical support services scheduled for phased release starting this year. Meanwhile, Sailada is actively seeking partnerships with mid- and downstream companies in the organoid industry chain.

“In addition to fostering extensive collaborations, the development of a field also requires cultivating a large pool of high-quality translational talent to achieve sustainable, rapid growth,” shared Dr. Li Jingyu. He noted that in November last year, Beijing Sailada Biotechnology Co., Ltd. was approved to establish a postdoctoral research workstation within its Beijing-based industrial park. From the perspective of industry-academia-research translation, the company aims to attract outstanding doctoral graduates through this postdoctoral workstation, further promote the development of the industry ecosystem, and lay a solid foundation for cultivating a reserve of talents with in-depth understanding of technology and the biopharmaceutical ecosystem for Sailada.