Fueling AI: Vizgen Launches 3D Spatial Biology Foundry Velocity Lab

WALTHAM, Mass. – November 10, 2026 — For years, the promise of artificial intelligence in drug discovery has hinged on a single, persistent bottleneck: the quality of the biological data feeding the algorithms. While computational power has surged, foundation models of biology have largely been trained on flat, two-dimensional tissue slices or, worse, dissociated cells stripped of their natural environment. Today, Vizgen Inc. is attempting to shatter that bottleneck with the launch of Velocity Lab, a centralized research foundry designed to generate decision-grade, three-dimensional spatial biology data at an unprecedented industrial scale.

The Waltham-based spatial multi-omics leader, widely known for commercializing Multiplexed Error-Robust Fluorescence in situ Hybridization (MERFISH) technology, is signaling a major strategic shift. By launching a central foundry capable of profiling hundreds of millions of cells per week by 2027, the company is moving beyond its traditional role as an instrument vendor. Instead, it is positioning itself as the premier data engine for the next generation of predictive biological models.

Fueling the AI Beast with 3D Context

The core problem Velocity Lab aims to solve is contextual data scarcity. When cells are removed from their tissue architecture or viewed in ultra-thin slices, critical interactions are lost. Artificial intelligence algorithms cannot accurately predict how a drug will perform in a complex human organ if they are trained on isolated cellular snapshots.

"Foundation models of biology are limited by the kind of data they are trained on, not only the amount," said Rob Carson, President and CEO of Vizgen, in a statement today. "Cells act on one another, and you cannot learn those interactions strictly from cells measured out of their system context. Velocity Lab generates, with partners, what’s scarce, and it does so at scale: cells characterized in intact volumetric tissue, under defined perturbation, by protein as well as transcript."

To achieve the staggering throughput targets set for 2027, the foundry will rely heavily on advancements in the company's MERFISH 2.0 chemistry and MERSCOPE Ultra platforms. Recent independent preprint studies have demonstrated that advanced iterations of this technology can achieve ten-fold increases in throughput, enabling the generation of three-dimensional molecular atlases containing millions of cells at subcellular resolution. By scaling these systems in a centralized facility, the firm intends to feed high-throughput biopharma pipelines with the exact type of dense, interaction-rich datasets that AI developers have been starving for.

Beyond the Thin Slice: Volumetric Multi-Omics

A cornerstone of the new foundry’s offering is Volumetric Tissue Mapping. Historically, spatial biology has relied on tissue sections roughly 10 micrometers (µm) thick. Velocity Lab shatters this limitation by profiling thick tissue up to 100 µm in depth. By imaging the full depth of the tissue, researchers can capture up to four times more neighboring cells per individual cell. This three-dimensional neighborhood analysis is critical for resolving complex disease microenvironments, such as the dense plaques found in neurodegeneration or the intricate cellular networks within solid tumors, which remain entirely hidden in standard thin sections.

Alongside volumetric capabilities, the foundry is rolling out MERSCOPE CoMap, a technology that allows for the simultaneous detection of high-plex RNA and researcher-selected proteins on the exact same tissue slide. This same-slide co-detection directly leverages the ultrasensitive spatial proteomics expertise the firm acquired when it purchased Ultivue in 2024.

By connecting a cell’s molecular identity (RNA) with its functional state (protein) in a single experiment, researchers can streamline target validation, mechanism of action studies, and safety profiling. Early adopters are already capitalizing on this integration.

"Measuring protein and RNA together on the same section lets us connect a cell's molecular identity to its functional state, a critical layer as we build reference atlases of human tissue," noted Jennie Close, Ph.D., Senior Scientist at the Allen Institute. "Generating this data through Velocity Lab gave us the quality and consistency we need, at a scale that keeps our atlasing work moving."

For laboratories that prefer to keep their research in-house, the company is also releasing the MERSCOPE Ultra Z Installation Package, allowing existing instrument owners to upgrade their systems for volumetric mapping without relying on the centralized service.

The Shifting Business of Spatial Biology

The launch of Velocity Lab highlights a broader strategic pivot occurring across the life sciences sector. While selling capital-intensive laboratory instruments remains a lucrative business, the industry is increasingly embracing a "scale-as-a-service" model.

As one life science market analyst observed, biopharmaceutical companies are increasingly reluctant to invest millions in decentralized instrument fleets and the specialized personnel required to run them. Instead, they are turning to centralized foundries that can deliver high-quality, standardized data without the operational overhead.

This strategic shift places the Waltham firm in direct competition with a dynamic landscape of spatial biology players. Competitors like 10x Genomics, which dominates the single-cell and spatial market with its Xenium platform, and Bruker Corporation, which recently integrated NanoString’s CosMx technology into its portfolio, are all vying for supremacy in high-plex in situ analysis. Similarly, Akoya Biosciences continues to push the boundaries of spatial phenotyping.

However, by integrating its 2024 Ultivue proteomics acquisition into a centralized, high-throughput service model, the MERFISH developer is attempting to outmaneuver rivals who primarily focus on decentralized instrument sales. The foundry model not only lowers the barrier to entry for smaller biotech firms but also provides large pharmaceutical companies with the massive, standardized datasets required to train their proprietary AI models.

Early Adoption and the Road Ahead

Initial collaborations at the new facility are already underway, signaling strong industry demand. In addition to the Allen Institute's work on human tissue reference atlases, an unnamed multinational biopharma partner is currently utilizing Volumetric Tissue Mapping for neuroscience drug discovery.

Looking forward, the foundry is equipping itself for spatially resolved functional genomics. Through early-access collaborations, researchers will soon be able to utilize pooled perturbations to investigate disease mechanisms and identify novel therapeutic targets. This capability will allow scientists to observe how specific genetic or chemical interventions alter cellular behavior while preserving the critical tissue context that is lost in traditional bulk sequencing approaches.

The scientific community will get a closer look at these capabilities later this month. The company is scheduled to present two posters at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) 2026 meeting in Washington, D.C., detailing cellular organization resolved through 3D volumetric mapping and introducing a new web application for registering mouse brain data to the Allen Common Coordinate Framework.

As the race to discover the next blockbuster drug increasingly relies on artificial intelligence, the algorithms will only ever be as good as the data they ingest. By transitioning from a hardware provider to an industrial-scale data foundry, Vizgen is betting that the future of drug discovery lies not just in seeing the cells, but in mapping the complex, three-dimensional neighborhoods they inhabit.