From reconstructed human tissues and patient-derived organoids to non-animal testing and global expansion, Manokumar, Founder of Biodimension, discusses the company’s journey, technology, commercialisation strategy and vision for the future of biotechnology.

Founded in 2021, Bengaluru-based Biodimension is building human-relevant alternatives to conventional animal testing through reconstructed human tissues, organoids and advanced in-vitro platforms. The company works across applications spanning drug discovery, pharmaceutical research, cosmetics, personal care and disease modelling. Biodimension currently operates a 6,000-square-foot NAMs facility in Bengaluru and has developed a growing portfolio of human tissue models.

At the centre of this journey is Manokumar, Founder of Biodimension, who has been closely involved in developing the company’s tissue-engineering and biofabrication capabilities. Biodimension was founded by Manokumar, Ranjith Kumar Velusamy and Pradeep Arunachalam, all of whom studied biotechnology at VIT.

In this conversation, Manokumar discusses why Biodimension was created, the limitations of traditional animal and 2D cell models, the science behind reconstructed human tissues, the company’s commercial journey, its latest funding, and why he believes India has the potential to become a global hub for Non-Animal Methods (NAMs).

From Research to Entrepreneurship

Biodimension was founded in 2021 with a vision to make scientific research more human-relevant and reduce dependence on animal testing. What inspired you and the founding team to build Biodimension, and what gap in conventional research did you want to address?

The honest answer is that we kept watching good science fail at the last step.

Roughly nine out of every ten drugs that enter human trials never make it to the market. These are not careless molecules. They have already cleared years of laboratory work and animal studies. They fail in humans because the animal never told the truth about the human.

A mouse is not a small person. Its enzymes, receptors, immune system and skin are built differently. A drug that is safe and effective in a rat can therefore behave very differently in a patient.

The point that made it personal for us was cancer. We were working with tumour tissue and could see that the same drug behaved completely differently from patient to patient. In some cases it did nothing, while in others the tumour responded in the wrong direction.

Nothing in the animal model or a flat cell-culture dish could have predicted that in advance because neither represented that patient.

So, the gap was not a shortage of good molecules. The gap was a testing system that could not adequately represent human biology.

Three of us who studied biotechnology together at VIT started Biodimension after gaining industry experience, with the goal of building human tissue in the laboratory and asking the human question before the patient is ever involved.

Building a Non-Animal Testing Platform

Biodimension works in the emerging field of Non-Animal Methods using reconstructed human tissues, organoids and advanced in-vitro platforms. How do these technologies work, and why could they change preclinical research?

Let me start with what NAMs actually are in plain language.

Traditionally, a company has two options before human trials. One is a flat layer of cells growing in a plastic dish. The other is an animal.

We are offering a third option: a small, living piece of human tissue built in the laboratory from human cells.

We take human cells, place them on a scaffold made from biomaterials such as collagen and gelatin, and assemble them in the correct order using biofabrication techniques. We then grow them under conditions that encourage them to behave like real tissue.

Our skin models, for example, are grown with the top surface exposed to air, as real skin is. This allows them to form a proper barrier with multiple layers that can be observed under a microscope.

Organoids work on a similar principle, but they self-organise from patient cells into miniature versions of a tumour or organ.

Neither an animal study nor a flat cell assay will ever substitute completely for a clinical trial. An animal model has the problem of species differences, while a flat cell assay lacks the architecture and complexity of real tissue.

What we are trying to build is closer to a clinical trial on a dish—not a replacement for the actual trial, but a human-relevant answer obtained earlier, at the laboratory stage.

If a company can find out within weeks that a molecule will not work in human tissue, it can potentially save several years and significant resources that would otherwise be spent advancing the wrong candidate.

The Science Behind Human-Relevant Tissue Models

What are some of the biggest technical challenges involved in developing tissues that accurately replicate human biology?

There are three ingredients.

The cells are the bricks. The biomaterial is the cement that holds them in place and gives them something to grip. Biofabrication is the mason—it decides which brick goes where, in what order and at what thickness.

The difficulty is that cells do not automatically become tissue simply because you put them together. They need to be instructed.

That instruction comes from the chemistry of the medium, the stiffness of the material, protein levels, growth factors and even whether the top surface is wet or exposed to air.

Four problems are particularly difficult.

First is keeping the tissue alive. There is no blood supply, so nutrients have to reach the cells through diffusion.

Second is barrier function. Building a laboratory tissue that leaks is relatively easy. Building one that behaves like real skin and produces meaningful permeation results is much harder.

Third is structural integrity. When we build full-thickness skin containing both dermis and epidermis, those layers need to remain properly joined and the construct should not shrink.

Fourth—and commercially the most important—is reproducibility.

A customer does not want a beautiful tissue once. They want the same tissue every batch and across different donors.

We therefore validate our models at three levels. Structurally, we check whether the tissue has the correct layers and proteins. Functionally, we test whether it behaves correctly against reference chemicals with known human effects. Statistically, we run repeated batches and report the variation.

We are also working towards OECD Test Guidelines. Until formal validation is complete, we scope our claims to research use and communicate that clearly to customers.

From Skin Models to Organoids

How does Biodimension decide which tissue models to develop internally, and what determines their commercial and scientific potential?

We started with skin, and that was a deliberate commercial decision rather than simply a scientific preference.

Cosmetic and personal care companies had an immediate compliance-driven need for alternatives to animal testing. Skin was also an obvious starting point because many consumer products physically interact with the skin.

We gradually made our skin models more complex.

We added pigmentation models so companies could study tanning and brightening. We developed a dandruff model involving the relevant scalp organism. We built a vaginal epithelial model and full-thickness skin models, along with disease models such as psoriasis, with acne in development.

This allowed us to move from answering safety questions to answering efficacy questions, which is where customers can derive additional value.

Skin also carried us into pharma.

A full-thickness skin model with a functional barrier can be used for permeation studies, allowing researchers to understand how much of a drug gets through and how quickly.

We then moved into organoids, beginning with breast and colorectal models. The next areas are liver, followed by kidney and cardiac models.

The reasoning is straightforward. Every drug, regardless of what disease it is intended to treat, has to be processed by the liver, cleared by the kidney and assessed for potential cardiac effects.

Our selection criteria come down to four questions: Is somebody already paying to answer this question badly? Is there regulatory pull? Can we source the cells reproducibly at scale and acceptable cost? And does the model build on the platform we already have?

Scientific elegance alone is not enough to fund a project internally.

Applications Across Industries

Which industries are currently showing the strongest demand for human-relevant testing?

Cosmetics and personal care represent the most mature demand today, largely because regulation created an immediate requirement.

Customers approach us for safety testing, including skin and eye irritation and sensitisation. They also come to us for claim substantiation—whether an anti-dandruff, anti-ageing, hydration or pigmentation claim is supported by data generated on human tissue.

Pharma and biopharma are the fastest-changing segments.

The interest here is not only about compliance. Pharmaceutical companies want to understand what their own molecule is likely to do before committing to a clinical programme.

If a company has a topical formulation, for example, it would rather know on human tissue how much of it penetrates and whether it causes irritation before moving into clinical studies.

There is also an oncology opportunity, where patient-derived organoids can help hospitals and researchers understand how a particular patient’s tumour responds to specific drugs.

Ultimately, customers are buying a decision they can trust. Cosmetics customers are buying compliance and defensible claims, while pharmaceutical customers are buying early risk reduction.

How Far Can Animal Testing Be Replaced?

Where can reconstructed human tissues and organoids realistically replace animal models today, and where is further development required?

I want to be very careful here because this field has a habit of over-promising.

We are not going to completely replace animal testing immediately. We have started with a handful of test methods, and there is still a very large number to convert.

Several areas already have validated non-animal alternatives, including skin corrosion, skin irritation, eye irritation and serious eye damage, skin sensitisation, phototoxicity, skin absorption and certain genotoxicity endpoints.

Where the technology genuinely delivers today is local effects and mechanisms.

Anything happening at a barrier, anything involving how much of a compound gets into tissue, or anything where we want to understand a pathway or screen efficacy against a disease mechanism can increasingly be studied using human tissue.

The remaining gap is whole-body biology.

Repeat-dose systemic toxicity, carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity involve multiple organs interacting over long periods, alongside immune and hormonal systems.

A dish does not have a bloodstream, a liver communicating with a kidney, or a lifetime.

Multi-organ chips are being developed to address this, but they are not yet at the level of broad regulatory acceptance.

So my realistic position is that this will be a long road. Rather than making sweeping claims, we would rather move method by method with proper validation.

Turning DeepTech Into a Commercial Business

What has been the biggest challenge in converting Biodimension’s scientific capabilities into a scalable business?

The biggest challenge is that a scientist wants the tissue to be perfect and a customer wants an answer by Friday.

Learning to hold both of those requirements at the same time is the actual work of building the company.

Our first product took around three and a half years. That period was slow, expensive and largely invisible because we were not simply developing a tissue. We were learning how to source cells, conduct studies, document them, price them and explain their value to procurement teams.

Once we understood that route, our next seven products came in roughly two years.

Our approach to research and revenue is that they should fund each other rather than compete.

Biodimension is a revenue-generating company with repeat customers, and service revenue helps fund the research pipeline. At the same time, customer projects help us expand our capabilities because an unusual customer requirement can effectively fund the development of a new capability.

Repeat customers matter more to us than new logos because repeat business is one of the strongest indicators that the data was actually useful.

Infrastructure has also been a significant requirement. We operate a dedicated facility with cell culture, microbiology, analytical, histopathology and molecular biology capabilities.

You cannot simply rent your way into this business.

Building World-Class Biotech Infrastructure in India

What role has Biodimension’s Bengaluru infrastructure played in your growth?

Our facility in Bommasandra, Bengaluru, is approximately 6,000 square feet and is designed to bring multiple capabilities together.

Cell culture, microbiology, analytical work, histopathology and molecular biology sit under one roof.

That integration is not a vanity feature. It is the commercial engine.

In a typical study, we may build the tissue, dose it, perform histology to understand what happened inside the tissue and then use analytical chemistry to measure how much compound passed through it.

If any of these steps are outsourced, we lose control over timelines and, more importantly, the data chain.

Doing the work internally allows us to troubleshoot quickly, commit to turnaround times and stand behind the numbers because we generated them ourselves.

It also changes the size of projects we can accept.

For India, this infrastructure has a broader significance. Historically, if an Indian company wanted certain types of advanced testing, samples could leave the country.

Building this capability here means the work, data and know-how can remain in India.

It also creates an opportunity for young Indian scientists to gain practical experience in tissue engineering, biofabrication and regulated laboratory practice.

Funding and the Next Phase of Growth

Biodimension has raised capital from Campus Angels Network and subsequently secured a larger funding round led by IAN Angel Fund. How has external capital influenced the company’s growth?

Capital has arrived in the right sequence for us, and the sequence mattered as much as the amount.

Our early funding helped us prove that the science could work. We also received non-dilutive government support, including the BIRAC BIG grant and DST-NIDHI funding, alongside CSR support.

In June 2026, Biodimension closed an ₹8 crore funding round led by IAN Angel Fund, with participation from Campus Angels Network and other investors.

The character of this capital is different.

The first phase funded discovery. This round is about becoming a company that a global pharmaceutical customer can rely on.

Our priorities are fivefold.

First is validation and accreditation, particularly OECD Test Guideline validation.

Second is infrastructure, including additional cleanroom and manufacturing capacity.

Third is the product pipeline, including liver and cardiac models, additional disease models and expansion of our patient-derived organoid biobank.

Fourth is talent, particularly senior scientists and quality and regulatory professionals.

Fifth is market expansion, including building our presence beyond India.

Building Trust in a Scientific Market

How do you build customer confidence in a market where scientific validation and reproducibility are critical?

The uncomfortable truth is that no presentation convinces anybody.

A scientist in a pharmaceutical company will not believe your model until they have seen it work on their molecule.

So, in pharma, we invert the usual commercial order. We deliberately take on some of the initial risk because we are asking customers to trust an unfamiliar methodology.

Publications also carry weight that marketing cannot.

When our work appears in peer-reviewed literature or technical white papers with methods disclosed, scientists can interrogate the work themselves.

We publish protocols and raw data, not only conclusions, and we report batch-to-batch variation honestly.

There is also the formal layer.

We are ISO 9001:2015 certified, while OECD Test Guideline validation and laboratory accreditation are ongoing priorities.

These are not marketing badges. They are commercial gates.

Until a method is formally validated, our claims remain scoped to research use, and we communicate that clearly to customers.

That transparency is itself part of building trust.

Can India Become a Global NAMs Hub?

Where do you see India’s competitive advantage in the global human-relevant research market?

India’s advantage has been building for more than two decades.

Technology and regulation in this space moved faster in Europe and North America, but significant contract research and laboratory execution was also outsourced to India.

As a result, India developed trained scientists, laboratory capabilities, operating discipline and a competitive cost structure.

The opportunity now is to move from executing work for global companies to building globally competitive NAMs companies from India.

For that to happen, four areas need to evolve.

The first is regulation. India needs clear pathways for regulatory acceptance of non-animal data in domestic submissions and greater participation in international guideline development.

Second is accreditation infrastructure. We need accredited laboratory scopes covering these methods so that data generated in India can be accepted internationally.

Third is industry adoption. Indian pharmaceutical and consumer companies need to increasingly accept non-animal data in their own development programmes.

Fourth is capital and talent.

Deep-tech biotechnology needs patient capital capable of supporting seven-to-ten-year development cycles. We also need practical training in tissue engineering and regulatory science.

If these four areas move forward, India can do more than participate in this market. It can lead it.

The Road Ahead for Biodimension

What does success look like for Biodimension over the next three to five years?

These are not separate alternatives. They are sequential steps, and we are moving through them in order.

Geographically, we currently serve India and the South Asian region. We are working towards European partnerships, with North America to follow.

The objective is to develop a distribution presence across major global markets so companies can access our models without us needing an office in every country.

On the product side, we are moving from skin towards the organs every drug has to pass through—starting with liver, followed by kidney and cardiac—alongside an expanding patient-derived organoid biobank.

But what we are really building underneath all of this is an infrastructure layer.

The models are products, but the durable asset is the combination of validated methods, an accredited laboratory and the know-how to build a new tissue on demand.

A customer who trusts us with skin testing today should be able to come to us with a completely new tissue requirement in five years and have us build it.

That is much harder to replicate than any individual product.

So, success in three to five years means formally validated and regulator-accepted methods, repeat revenue from customers across three continents, and at least one tissue model where, if you need that specific test done well, Biodimension is one of the first laboratories you think of.

Beyond that is a longer-term ambition.

The same biofabrication technology that allows us to build a piece of skin for testing could one day contribute to building tissue for transplantation.

The organ shortage remains one of medicine’s major unsolved problems. We are still a long way from that goal, and the scientific and regulatory challenges are considerable.

But that is ultimately the direction in which this technology points—and it is one of the reasons we got into this field in the first place.

Interview By: Arushi Agarwal