OrganOx, with its system for actively preserving viable donor tissue ahead of a transplant procedure, has raised $142 million to expand its commercial reach and R&D.
The company’s metra platform has collected regulatory approvals in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Australia, and has already been used in more than 5,000 liver transplants.
The equity financing round was led by HealthQuest Capital, with additional backing from BGF, Lauxera Capital Partners, Sofina, Soleus Capital and Avidity Management.
According to OrganOx, metra’s ability to preserve donated tissue for up to 24 hours allows additional flexibility for transplant teams and patients in scheduling a potentially lengthy surgery—while also giving clinicians the opportunity to assess how well the candidate liver is functioning prior to the procedure.
The company said that its studies have shown metra has helped cut the number of discarded livers in half, compared to simple cold storage. OrganOx’s automated approach, dubbed normothermic machine perfusion, concentrates oxygen from the ambient air and transfers it to a blood reservoir.
That blood is then circulated through the tissue—which is kept at nearly body temperature to help maintain its metabolism, as opposed to just above the freezing point of water.
OrganOx is also investigating metra’s use for kidney transplants, with plans to launch clinical trials in the U.S.
Metra has also been used not just for human donor tissue, but also in genetically altered xenotransplants derived from pigs. OrganOx’s approach was previously tapped by eGenesis in a study of its porcine liver, which demonstrated last year that it could circulate human blood through the organ while it was connected externally to the body of a brain-dead research donor.
In the time since, OrganOx and eGenesis have cemented a co-development agreement to construct an advanced liver support system, as an extracorporeal therapy designed to help acute patients recover before they need a transplant.
The two companies said they plan to seek an FDA green light to begin a first-in-human study that combines metra with a genetically engineered porcine liver sometime this year.