NEW YORK – Swedish medical technology company XVivo Perfusion and MyCartis announced today that they are collaborating to develop a diagnostic tool to assess the quality of donated organs during ex vivo perfusion.
As part of the collaboration, the team will expand Belgium-based MyCartis' real-time Evalution analysis platform to allow users to quantify organ damage next to the degree of inflammation. The group said that both phenomena act as negative indicators for successful transplantation.
Ex-vivo lung perfusion [EVLP] is a therapy applied to donor lungs outside the body before transplantation that improves organ quality and allows the donated lungs to remain safe for transplant. Surgeons place the donated lungs into a sterile plastic dome attached to a ventilator, pump, and filters, which maintain the lungs at normal body temperature until a surgeon can evaluate whether they are suitable for transplant.
"Seeing that the unique capabilities of fast, easy, and timely biomarker testing of our Evaluation platform are recognized in the field of organ transplantation strengthens our [belief] that we can play a major role in solving unmet medical needs," MyCartis CSO Wouter Laroy said in a statement. "MyCartis' strong experience in a high performant biomarker testing perfectly complements Xvivo's expertise in donor organ perfusion, a combination that will help save lives of those in need of a new organ."
Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
"Xvivo believes that adding biomarkers, in addition to measurement of conventional physiological criteria, to determine fitness for transplantation after an EVLP will play an important role in the decision process," XVivo CEO Magnus Nillson said in a statement. "This new method has the potential to increase the number of donated lungs for transplantation by using EVLP."