OrganOx was founded in 2008 by two renowned Oxford University Professors, Peter Friend (Professor of Surgery) and Constantin Coussios (Professor of Biomedical Engineering), as an academic spinoff from Oxford University.  OrganOx’s device, metra, preserves donor livers and enables assessment of the organs prior to transplantation reducing organ discard and allowing surgeons to perform transplantations during the working day rather than as an emergency at night.

OrganOx’s mission is to increase the number of organs available for transplantation. Its metra device seeks to re-create an environment for the recovered liver that mimics the human body. In the machine, livers are continuously perfused at physiological pressures using oxygen-carrying red blood cells. The core technology employed by metra has been in development for over 15 years and the device is FDA approved for liver preservation. The company’s technology for kidney transplantation is in human clinical trials.

metra’s rapid growth has been driven by the technology’s ability to objectively assess a donor organ allowing surgeons to confidently transplant “marginal” livers that might otherwise have been discarded. Donor liver preservation and assessment with the metra has resulted in over 50% fewer liver discards and 20% more transplanted livers, compared with static cold storage, according to a recent, randomized European trial.

Utilization of machine perfusion prior to liver transplantation makes the surgery safer by reducing the risk of recipient hypotension and cardiac arrest on the operating table. As metra offers up to 24 hours of preservation time, NMP also enables surgeons to avoid operating overnight. Avoiding night operations reduces surgical complications and makes a career in transplant surgery more sustainable.

Lauxera’s investment will enable OrganOx to radically expand its commercial footprint, build new manufacturing facilities, and conduct a broad array of post-market clinical evaluations.