Emulate has brought its AVA Emulation System to SLAS2026, showcasing the potential to accelerate drug development with a first-of-its-kind high-throughput organ-chip platform. 

The AVA Emulation System, launched in June 2025, is a self-contained instrument that cultures, incubates, and images up to 96 independent organ-chip samples in a single run. The company says the technology delivers in vivo-level insights faster than animal models, while cutting consumable costs four-fold and in-lab labour by half compared to current generation technologies. 

With the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) aiming to phase out animal studies, there is a need for proven human models. According to Emulate data, the company’s Liver-Chip S1 has already outperformed animals, showing 87% sensitivity and 100% specificity for drug-induced liver injury in a 2022 Communications Medicine study.  

Emulate’s AVA builds on the Liver-Chip S1 to scales that level of human relevance across discovery, efficacy, and toxicology screens, accelerating safer therapies through the pipeline. 

“AVA gives scientists unprecedented experimental capacity with the biological depth of live human tissue — something no other platform can match,” Jim Corbett, Chief Executive Officer at Emulate, said in a press release launching the AVA System. 

“By combining Emulate’s proven organ-on-a-chip technology with high-throughput consumables, automated imaging, and streamlined workflows in one benchtop unit, AVA lets teams ask bigger questions earlier and move the right drug candidates forward faster.”