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Conventional drug discovery and screening processes have important drawbacks particularly in preclinical phase which include in vitro drug screening test, namely, 2D cell culture, and in vivo test on animal models. It is known that 2D cell cultures are insufficient to indicate drug response of real tissues and organs. Animal models also mislead about drug response with the same reason, and there are some ethical issues about animal models as well. These drawbacks lead to failure of drug candidate at later phases or after approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Since the drug development phases are very costly processes, this failure means time and money consumption to drug companies. More importantly if the drug fails after approval, many patients will be exposed and be affected by its side effects.

Recently, three-dimensional (3D) cell culture systems have been started to be used in drug …