Curi Bio Unveils Curiverse™ at MPS 2026, the First Closed-Loop Platform for Human-Relevant Drug Discovery
Curi Bio has officially unveiled the Curiverse™ at the Microphysiological Systems World Summit 2026, introducing what the company describes as the industry’s first fully integrated closed-loop ecosystem designed for industrial-scale 3D human drug discovery. The launch marks a major milestone for the company as it consolidates its first-half 2026 technology portfolio into a unified platform architecture aimed at helping pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations accelerate the adoption of non-animal models (NAMs) in drug development.
The Curiverse combines assay-ready induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cells, automated high-throughput biosystems, and cloud-based analytical tools into a single ecosystem intended to streamline complex 3D biology workflows. According to Curi Bio, the integrated platform is designed to overcome longstanding scalability limitations that have historically restricted advanced 3D tissue models to smaller-scale research settings.
The announcement comes during a period of significant transformation across the life sciences industry as regulators and pharmaceutical developers increasingly push toward more human-relevant research methods. In particular, momentum surrounding NAMs has accelerated following passage of the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, which expanded support for alternatives to animal testing in drug development and regulatory evaluation.
As regulatory agencies and industry stakeholders seek more predictive and ethically sustainable preclinical testing methods, many companies are investing heavily in technologies capable of modeling human biology with greater precision. However, while sophisticated 3D tissue models and organoid systems have shown scientific promise, operational complexity and scalability challenges have often limited their broader adoption in industrial screening environments.
Curi Bio says the Curiverse is specifically designed to eliminate those bottlenecks by integrating three core components—Cells, Systems, and Data—into a unified infrastructure that supports large-scale drug discovery workflows.
The first pillar of the Curiverse ecosystem focuses on Cells. The company provides assay-ready, patient-specific iPSC-derived cell models and isogenic cell pairs intended to reduce the extensive protocol development work often required in-house by research teams. By delivering standardized biological starting materials, Curi Bio aims to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies shorten setup timelines and improve experimental consistency.
Among the newly introduced offerings is the DM1 Model Suite, designed to support research into myotonic dystrophy type 1, a complex neuromuscular disease. The company believes these disease-specific cellular models can provide researchers with more physiologically relevant systems for studying disease biology and evaluating therapeutic candidates.
The second pillar centers on Systems, which includes automated high-throughput biosystems engineered to scale functional biological readouts for drug screening applications. These systems are designed to enable researchers to generate large volumes of reproducible functional data while maintaining the complexity and physiological relevance associated with 3D tissue models.
At the center of this systems portfolio is Mantarray™, Curi Bio’s established platform for measuring contractility in engineered 3D muscle tissues. Mantarray has become a key technology within the company’s product ecosystem by allowing researchers to evaluate tissue function using direct contractility measurements.
Expanding on this foundation, Curi Bio also introduced Nautilai Plus™, a new multimodal platform that combines direct tissue contractility measurements with synchronized optical readouts in a 96-well format optimized for automation and high-throughput screening. According to the company, Nautilai Plus is the first platform to integrate force measurements with simultaneous fluorescence and video analysis at this scale.
The addition of optical readouts allows researchers to capture additional physiological information, including calcium signaling and voltage activity, while simultaneously measuring tissue contraction. This multimodal approach may provide deeper insights into tissue behavior and drug response across a wide range of therapeutic applications.
Curi Bio also introduced an upgraded version of Stingray™, its standalone stimulation and maturation engine. The next-generation Stingray platform is designed to autonomously mature and condition up to 96 tissue samples simultaneously within incubator environments. Tissue maturation remains a critical step in creating physiologically relevant 3D models because immature tissues often fail to replicate adult human biological behavior accurately.
By scaling maturation and conditioning processes across larger sample volumes, the Stingray system is intended to support industrial-scale workflows that demand both consistency and high replicate depth.
The third pillar of the Curiverse ecosystem focuses on Data through Pulse™, Curi Bio’s cloud-based analytical engine. Pulse is designed to process and standardize the large quantities of data generated by high-throughput functional biology experiments.
One of the key challenges in scaling advanced tissue models has been the downstream complexity of data analysis. As throughput increases, researchers often face major bottlenecks related to interpreting and standardizing large datasets. Pulse addresses this challenge by automatically extracting and organizing critical metrics such as contractile force, twitch kinetics, calcium transients, and voltage synchronization.
According to the company, this analytical integration helps ensure that increasing throughput translates into faster and more actionable decision-making rather than simply creating additional data management burdens.
Curi Bio Chief Executive Officer Dr. Nicholas Geisse said the company believes the primary challenge in modern drug discovery is not solely the biological models themselves, but rather the integration of biological systems, instrumentation, and analytical workflows into a scalable infrastructure.
Geisse stated that the Curiverse is intended to provide pharmaceutical and biotechnology teams with the tools needed to make earlier and more confident go/no-go decisions during drug development. By generating high-throughput human functional data at industrial scale, the company hopes to support more predictive preclinical decision-making and improve the efficiency of therapeutic development.
In addition to the Curiverse platform architecture, Curi Bio used the MPS 2026 event to introduce several category-focused technologies designed for high-throughput screening and potency testing applications.
One of the major highlights is the 3D Human Neuromuscular Junction (NMJ) Model, a turnkey kit intended to provide reproducible functional measurements of neuron-driven muscle contraction. The company believes the model offers a more human-relevant alternative to legacy animal-based testing systems such as the Mouse Lethality Bioassay, which has historically been used in certain neurotoxicity and potency studies.
Interest in neuromuscular junction models has increased significantly as researchers seek better systems for studying neurological diseases, neuromuscular disorders, and toxin biology using human tissue platforms rather than animal models.
Curi Bio also introduced several disease-specific cell model suites tailored for precision drug profiling applications. These include a high-fidelity isogenic MYBPC3 model for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a genetic cardiovascular disorder often associated with mutations in sarcomeric proteins.
The company additionally launched a four-line skeletal muscle DM1 panel utilizing both isogenic and wild-type controls for more precise dose-response characterization in myotonic dystrophy type 1 research.
To further support physiological relevance and experimental reproducibility, Curi Bio announced new optimized media formulations for skeletal muscle, cardiac tissue, and motor neuron applications. These media lines are designed to simplify tissue maturation workflows while preserving the biological functionality necessary for predictive 3D modeling.
The launch of the Curiverse reflects broader industry trends toward integrating biology, automation, and computational analytics into unified drug discovery ecosystems. As pharmaceutical companies increasingly adopt artificial intelligence, automation, and advanced human tissue models, integrated platforms capable of supporting industrial-scale operations are becoming increasingly valuable.
The growing regulatory and commercial interest in NAMs is also accelerating investment in technologies that reduce reliance on animal testing while improving the translational relevance of preclinical data. Human tissue models derived from iPSCs are viewed as particularly promising because they can more closely replicate patient biology and disease-specific characteristics.
Despite the enthusiasm surrounding these technologies, scalability has remained one of the industry’s largest challenges. Many advanced tissue models require labor-intensive protocols, specialized expertise, and fragmented workflows that are difficult to deploy across large pharmaceutical screening programs.
Curi Bio’s strategy appears focused on addressing those operational limitations by providing integrated, automation-ready infrastructure capable of supporting large-scale drug discovery efforts without sacrificing biological complexity.
The company is currently showcasing the Curiverse and its expanded product portfolio as a Gold Sponsor at the Microphysiological Systems World Summit 2026 in Washington, D.C., where it is exhibiting at Booth #121. The event brings together leaders across biotechnology, pharmaceutical research, tissue engineering, and regulatory science to discuss the future of human-relevant drug development technologies.
With the introduction of the Curiverse, Curi Bio is positioning itself at the intersection of functional human biology, automation, and next-generation preclinical research infrastructure, aiming to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies accelerate the transition toward scalable, human-relevant drug discovery systems.
About Curi Bio
Curi Bio is accelerating the discovery of next-generation human medicines by integrating human cells, systems, and data into a unified ecosystem designed to bridge the gap between preclinical data and clinical results in cardiac, skeletal muscle, and neuromuscular research. By combining assay-ready, iPSC-derived cells with high-throughput biosystems and AI-enabled automated data analysis, Curi Bio provides researchers with a high-throughput path to generating regulatory-grade human functional data. Our mission is to provide researchers with the transformative tools they need to discover safer, more effective medicines, helping patients live longer, healthier lives.
