Gene-edited pig livers, synthetic embryos, and 3D-printed tissue implants… the world of organ transplantation is becoming increasingly bizarre as scientists explore high-tech ways to keep people alive.
These experiments are birthing new business opportunities. One company cashing in is University of Oxford spinout OrganOx, which this week secured $142mn in funding to fuel its expansion in the US as it mulls a potential IPO.
OrganOx’s Metra machine pumps oxygenated blood and nutrients through the liver, mimicking natural conditions during a transplant. This helps the organ stay healthier for up to 12 hours longer than traditional methods — giving doctors more time to find a suitable recipient and improving transplant success rates. To date, the technology has been used in more than 5,000 transplant operations.
OrganOx isn’t the only player disrupting organ preservation, which has relied on one technique — static cold storage — for decades.
Across the pond, Paragonix Technologies has developed an organ transportation device that preserves organs by cooling them and then pumping a special preservation solution through them. This helps to keep the organ cells alive and reduces damage during transport or storage, ensuring the organ stays viable for transplant. The tech caught the eye of Swedish medical-equipment giant Getinge, which acquired Paragonix for $477mn last year.
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Meanwhile, US biotech scaleup eGenesis, founded in 2015, has raised $456mn to advance xenotransplantation — using CRISPR gene-editing techniques to develop human-compatible organs derived from pigs. Yes, you read that correctly: pig organs for human transplants.
Last year, surgeons at the University of Pennsylvania successfully attached one of eGenesis’ genetically-altered pig livers to a brain-dead person. The organ functioned normally for 72 hours. The team used OrganOx’s machine to carry out the transplant. The endeavor aims to address the chronic shortage of donor organs from humans, potentially saving countless lives.
In December 2024, there were over 104,000 people in the US waiting for an organ donor. Every day, 17 people die waiting.
Craig Marshall, CEO of OrganOx, said that the company is preparing to launch clinical trials for new devices designed to assist kidney transplants, as well as advance its work in genetically-engineered pig livers.
Other companies are taking organ transplantation into the realm of science fiction — and raising some ethical questions in the process. Renewal Bio, a startup from Israel, is using cutting-edge stem-cell science to create synthetic human embryos. The company wants to use the embryos — grown in an artificial womb — as a source for harvesting cells and tissues for medical applications, such as organ transplants.
While Renewal Bio insists that these entities are not intended to develop into human beings, the potential for creating embryos that resemble people raises ethical questions about the limits of scientific experimentation.