Systemic Bio, the 3D Systems subsidiary working to transform drug development with bioprinted tissue models, has officially closed. The news came in an emotional, personal, and powerful blog post by its founder, Taci Pereira, who reflected on the journey from a childhood loss to pioneering innovation in 3D bioprinting.

“I’m closing a chapter today,” she wrote, “but the mission continues.”

Taci Pereira in 2022 and then in 2025 with her team. Image courtesy of Taci Pereira/Taci’s Substack.

Pereira’s story began in Brazil, where she lost all four grandparents to cancer at a young age. That heartbreak motivated her to make a difference: “I promised myself I’d dedicate my life to fighting the disease I believe is humanity’s biggest challenge. I worked hard to make it possible. I became the first kid from my city to get into Harvard – one of only six from Brazil that year. With ~90% financial aid, some additional scholarships, and side jobs (dog walker, babysitter, bartender, barista, dorm-room cleaner, mailroom sorter…), I studied bioengineering to build technologies that could one day help millions of doctors treat patients like my grandparents.”

Her early research in cancer immunotherapy led her to Allevi, a bioprinting startup, where she rose quickly from scientist to Chief Scientific Officer. But even as the company grew, she began to think bigger.

“I started obsessing: could we generate better data from bioprinted tissues produced at scale?” she wrote.

The goal was to create high-quality, human-relevant tissue models that could be used in AI-driven drug discovery, replacing the unreliable animal and cell-line data often used today.

But there was a major hurdle: the existing bioprinting tools weren’t built for scale. Most systems were designed for small-scale research, producing only a few tissue samples at a time. They were too slow, inconsistent, and limited to ever support the kind of high-throughput drug testing she had imagined. Pereira explained that to make real progress, she knew the technology had to move beyond the lab and into industrial-scale production.

At the time, no one in bioprinting was solving the scale problem. So she looked beyond the field and found 3D Systems. After reaching out, she helped orchestrate Allevi’s acquisition by 3D Systems.

Pereira briefly left to start a new venture focused on AI and tissue data, but 3D Systems asked her to return. She came back to lead a new bioprinting department as Vice President/General Manager, working by day and prototyping at night. In 2022, she officially pitched her vision. With $15 million in internal funding, Systemic Bio was created.

What began as a shared lab bench and a phone booth “office” soon grew into Systemic Bio, a fast-scaling biotech venture. The company launched its h-VIOS platform (short for human vascularized integrated organ systems), built a 15,000-square-foot facility, grew to a team of 30, and filed seven patent families. Its bioprinting process could produce 6,000 vascularized hydrogels per month. Systemic also landed partnerships with major pharmaceutical firms, and received a $10,000 innovation award recognizing breakthroughs in lab automation and screening.

h-VIOS2 containing two perfused vascularized hydrogels. Within this chip’s footprint, any vasculature can be created. Image courtesy of 3D Systems.

But the cost of building this kind of deep tech was high: “The problem we were solving is massive, requires significant investment, and the industry is undergoing tremendous challenges,” Pereira wrote. “3D Systems is laser-focused on profitability and can no longer hold this cost-intensive bet.”

She thanked her team, calling them “the heart of Systemic Bio,” and credited 3D Systems leaders Jeff Graves, Menno Ellis, and inventor Chuck Hull for their support of her vision.

To her team, she wrote: “Watching you grow, learn, innovate, build families, and pour yourselves into this mission has been one of the greatest honors of my life.”

Systemic Bio may have closed its doors, but Pereira made it clear that her journey is far from over.

“The scientist who once stood by her grandfather’s hospital bed, determined to change the way we fight disease, still has that same fire,” she concluded. “This isn’t the end. It’s the space between chapters.”