Latest news with #eGenesis
Associated Press
08-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
OrganOx Announces Second Private Placement Closing, Investments by Intuitive Ventures and Terumo Ventures
OXFORD, England and MADISON, N.J., May 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OrganOx Ltd., a leading organ medical technology company, completed a second closing of its private placement with investments from Intuitive Ventures, Terumo Ventures, and Piper Heartland Healthcare LLC. Together with the first closing of its private placement on February 24, 2025, OrganOx raised $160 million in primary and secondary equity financing to accelerate growth opportunities for its metra ® platform technology in the large and high growth organ technology global market. Approved in the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Australia, the OrganOx metra ® is a normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) platform technology utilized in over 5,000 liver transplants to date. The metra ® keeps donor livers in a metabolically active state outside the body, providing transplant teams with the opportunity for functional assessment of the organ prior to transplant which leads to an increased number of organs available for transplant, while also extending liver preservation times as compared to static cold storage. The company is also expanding its metra ® technology for kidney transplants, currently in development, and in collaboration with eGenesis, recently gained FDA clearance to begin a first-in-human clinical study of the use of its metra ® technology combined with eGenesis' genetically engineered porcine livers to support patients with acute-on-chronic liver failure. 'It is an honor and a privilege to have Intuitive Ventures and Terumo Ventures invest in OrganOx,' said Oern R. Stuge, MD, MBA, Executive Chairman at OrganOx. 'Our board and management team look forward to working together with these industry leaders to further advance our organ technologies that save patient lives.' Piper Sandler acted as exclusive financial advisor and Latham & Watkins acted as legal counsel to OrganOx in this transaction. About OrganOx OrganOx is a commercial stage organ technology company, spun out of the University of Oxford in 2008, dedicated to developing technologies to improve outcomes for patients with acute or chronic organ failure. The OrganOx metra ® is a normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) platform approved in the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Australia. It has been utilized in over 5,000 liver transplants to date to keep donor livers in a metabolically active state outside the body enabling longer preservation times and functional assessment of the organ prior to transplant, leading to an increased number of organs available for transplant. Learn more at About Intuitive Ventures Intuitive Ventures invests in companies reimagining the future of minimally invasive care. Our global focus spans diagnostics, MedTech, therapies, and digital health. With $250 million in assets under management, we back teams that share our passion for advancing positive patient outcomes, improving provider experience, and increasing the efficiency of healthcare delivery. Intuitive Ventures' experience as operators and clinicians combined with unique access to Intuitive Surgical's technical and commercial reach enables our portfolio companies to revolutionize the delivery of patient care. More information and future updates can be found at: About Terumo Ventures Terumo Ventures was founded as a corporate venture capital fund to drive Terumo's growth through strategic funding. Terumo Ventures invest in companies providing innovative solutions that achieve Terumo's Group Mission: 'Contributing to Society through Healthcare.' More information and future updates can be found at: Contacts OrganOx Investor Relations: Steve Deitsch Chief Financial Officer, OrganOx [email protected] OrganOx Media: Emma Yang Health+Commerce [email protected]
National Geographic
01-05-2025
- General
- National Geographic
This pig could save your life
THE ENTRY REQUIREMENTS should have come with an instruction booklet: Sign in at the security hut. Shoes off at the door. Over to the locker room for a hot shower. Into a long protective surgical smock and knee-high rubber waders, and finally, a pair of safety goggles, which—in the clammy heat of the laboratory complex—quickly began to fog. 'Sorry for the trouble,' smiled my tour guide, Bjöern Petersen, waving me forward. 'We just have to be exceptionally careful about pathogens. You'll get used to it, I promise.' A couple of hours earlier, I'd awoken in a hotel in a Midwestern city I've been asked not to name. Now, with the sun curdling above the surrounding pasture and a gauze of mist in the air, I found myself following Petersen, a German-born scientist, through the corridors of a highly secret research facility and across a muddy courtyard crosshatched with boot prints. 'When we bought the place,' he said, 'the owners were using it as a livestock research facility.' He indicated an adjacent barn. 'The cattle were here, and the horses in the field up there. We've kept the same basic layout, though obviously our purpose is very different.' He said something else as we entered the barn, but I didn't catch it—his voice had been drowned out by a raucous chorus of expectant grunts and the clatter of trotters on cement. A dozen-odd pigs surged forward to the edges of the individual enclosures, clanging their snouts against the metal gates. 'I want you to meet someone,' Petersen said, blinking into the harsh overhead light. He stopped near the pen of an animal whose name card identified her as Margarita. She curled her body against Petersen's hand, in the manner of an oversize house cat. 'Margarita was one of our first,' Petersen said proudly, leaning down to stroke the protuberant black hairs between the pig's ears. 'Most of these animals you're looking at were created from the same cells. But there's something special about the first, don't you think?' Petersen, who serves as the site head at the farm, is a specialist in livestock cloning and xenotransplantation—an exceedingly advanced scientific technique in which animal matter is transferred into human patients. (The name derives from the Greek for 'strange' or 'foreign.') In 2023, after nearly a quarter century working at government research institutions in Europe, Petersen uprooted his family and moved to the Midwest to take a job with eGenesis—a biotech firm backed by a group of venture capital firm investors—then in the early phases of a remarkable plan to develop genetically modified pig kidneys for transplantation into humans. Powered by advances in gene editing and immunosuppressive medicine, eGenesis had quickly demonstrated that its organs could survive for long periods in the bodies of primate test subjects, filtering blood and producing urine as ably as an 'allotransplanted,' or same-species, kidney. eGenesis scientist Raquel Castro prepares pig cells for the cloning process. The first stages entail using the gene-editing technique CRISPR to modify a cell sample. The modifications ensure the eventual kidney grown in a pig will be accepted by the human patient's immune system. Now, two years later, Petersen and eGenesis stand at the forefront of a major revolution in the science of organ transplantation—a revolution that will have implications for the global human donor shortage and the thousands of sick patients who wait every year for a new kidney. Already, the results have been astonishing: a progression from trial transplants on primates to transplant surgery on brain-dead human recipients—and finally, last March, in a development that made global headlines, to a transplant into a living human recipient. Food and Drug Administration officials have since given eGenesis the green light to conduct a three-patient clinical trial, a move that added to the surging interest the company has generated since last year's historic xenotransplant. Provided it stays on track and its trials prove successful, eGenesis's CEO Mike Curtis says, the company is making plans to grow its production capacity, and he thinks the science could become widely available to the public before the decade is out. 'In the long term,' he added, 'I'd argue we're looking at a scenario where cross-species transplants fully supplant allotransplants. Where we don't need human donors anymore.' Reaching that point will require further refinement of the technology and will demand more pigs like Margarita and scientists like Petersen. But more than anything, it will require trust on the part of those who go under the knife, who put their lives in the hands of this cutting-edge science and the doctors and hospitals championing it. And last year's successful xenotransplant—a four-hour procedure completed at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital that demanded untested faith, a hefty dose of desperation, and an unmeasurable amount of luck—was perhaps the most significant step forward into this new future. (The doctor who believes pig hearts could end our organ shortage.)
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
FDA clears eGenesis' genetically engineered porcine liver for Phase I trial
eGenesis has gained US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance on an investigational new drug (IND) application for a genetically engineered porcine (pig) liver. The organ is designed for use with OrganOx's extracorporeal liver cross-circulation (ELC) system for patients with acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF). The biotech and medtech companies entered an exclusive clinical co-development agreement last year to advance their respective technologies in combination. Research indicates that around 35,000 patients in the US are hospitalised for ACLF each year. Meanwhile, most individuals wait between three and five years for a kidney, as per the American Kidney Fund. eGenesis' pig liver is intended to draw down on the mortality rates in patients awaiting a transplant. The Phase I trial plans to enrol 20 patients with ACLF (Grade 2 to Grade 3) and hepatic encephalopathy (≤ Grade 3), who are ineligible for transplant, across multiple US centres. eGenesis' EGEN-5784 pig liver in combination with OrganOx's ELC is intended to support the function of patients' decompensated liver, potentially allowing for the recovery of a patient's native liver or providing sufficient time to receive a liver transplant. eGenesis CEO Michael Curtis commented: 'The FDA's clearance of EGEN-5784 in combination with the OrganOx ELC system represents a significant advance towards fulfilling our mission to develop safe and effective human-compatible organs that have the potential to transform the treatment of organ failure and extend patients' lives. Last year, OrganOx and eGenesis completed their first extracorporeal perfusion of a research donor using their combined offerings. The process involved circulating a recently deceased donor's blood through the genetically engineered EGEN-5784 pig liver outside of their body, with the donor being the first to be enrolled in the companies' ongoing PERFUSE-2 study. In the first procedure, stable blood flow, pressure, and pH were maintained throughout the procedure, with no evidence of rejection observed, with the perfusion electively stopped, per-protocol, at 72 hours, with the liver appearing healthy. Last year, eGenesis became the first company to successfully implant a pig kidney into a living patient at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) under the FDA's expanded access programme and concluded a $191m Series D financing round to continue the development of EGEN-5784. While Rick Slayman, the end-stage kidney disease patient who received the implant, died two months later, MGH stated there was no indication that the death was a result of the transplant. "FDA clears eGenesis' genetically engineered porcine liver for Phase I trial" was originally created and published by Clinical Trials Arena, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
NBC News
15-04-2025
- Health
- NBC News
FDA OKs trial of pig livers as dialysis-like treatment for liver failure
U.S. researchers will soon test whether livers from a gene-edited pig could treat people with sudden liver failure — by temporarily filtering their blood so their own organ can rest and maybe heal. The first-of-its-kind clinical trial has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, according to pig producer eGenesis, which announced the step Tuesday with its partner OrganOx. An estimated 35,000 people in the U.S. are hospitalized each year when their liver suddenly fails. There are few treatment options and death rates as high as 50%. Many don't qualify for a liver transplant or can't get a match in time. The new study, which is expected to get underway later this spring, is a twist on the quest for animal-to-human organ transplants. Researchers won't transplant the pig liver but instead will attach it externally to study participants. The liver is the only organ that can regenerate, but the question is whether having the pig's liver filter the patient's blood for several days could give it that chance. In experiments with four deceased bodies, that 'bridge' attempt showed the pig liver could support some functions of a human liver for two or three days, said Mike Curtis, CEO of Massachusetts-based eGenesis, which genetically modifies pigs so their organs are more humanlike. The trial will enroll up to 20 patients in intensive-care units who don't qualify a liver transplant, he said. A device made by Britain's OrganOx, currently used to preserve donated human livers, will pump participants' blood through the pig liver. It's the latest step in attempts to use gene-edited pig organs to save human lives. Pig kidneys from eGenesis and another pig producer, United Therapeutics, are being used in experimental transplants.
Boston Globe
15-04-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
FDA OKs trial of pig livers as dialysis-like treatment for liver failure
The new study, which is expected to get underway later this spring, is a twist on the quest for animal-to-human organ transplants. Researchers won't transplant the pig liver but instead will attach it externally to study participants. Advertisement The liver is the only organ that can regenerate, but the question is whether having the pig's liver filter the patient's blood for several days could give it that chance. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up In experiments with four deceased bodies, that 'bridge' attempt showed the pig liver could support some functions of a human liver for two or three days, said Mike Curtis, CEO of Massachusetts-based eGenesis, which genetically modifies pigs so their organs are more humanlike. The trial will enroll up to 20 patients in intensive-care units who don't qualify a liver transplant, he said. A device made by Britain's OrganOx, currently used to preserve donated human livers, will pump participants' blood through the pig liver. It's the latest step in attempts to use gene-edited pig organs to save human lives. Pig kidneys from eGenesis and another pig producer, United Therapeutics, are being used in experimental transplants. Advertisement The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
