Altran Foundation for Innovation Rewards an Intelligent Device for Transporting Donated Organs
PARIS, March 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --
The OrganOx™ metra[TM] has won the Altran Foundation for Innovation 2013 international award. The OrganOx metra system, which was presented by Altran UK[1], is a revolutionary device which has been designed to keep livers in a physiological state for up to 24 hours. This is a major improvement over the conventional cold process currently used to preserve organs. This device will benefit from the support of a team of Altran experts, who, over a one-year period, will provide assistance to enhance further its performance regarding the active preservation and transportation of organs for transplant surgery.
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The metra offers a solution which keeps donated livers "alive" by recreating the vital functions of the human body. This involves regulating blood flow and the biochemical composition of the organ, while controlling other parameters such as temperature, pressure, pH and oxygen concentrations. The device also maintains the constant circulation of fluids and monitors the production of bile, regarded as a key indicator of good liver function.
The system is also designed to take into account transportation constraints, in terms of speed of reaction to changes in environmental conditions and transportation movement, while ensuring that the highly demanding reliability requirements are respected.
OrganOx is a spin-out company from the University of Oxford, and has recently completed the recruitment for its first series of clinical liver transplant as part of a controlled clinical study and will be launching the product commercially during 2014.
During this commercialisation phase, Altran will provide its expertise in the fields of healthcare and intelligent systems to extend the energy autonomy and enhance the transportability of the device. More surprisingly, the Group's activities in the aeronautics sector may help the project to obtain the necessary flight-regulation certifications and eventually propose developments to guarantee the security of the system.
In the liver transplant segment alone, nearly 1,300 organs are discarded every year in Europe and the US. The technological progress of the OrganOx metra, which makes it possible to keep donated organs in a near physiological state, will pave the way for other applications, such as the transplantation of other types of organs and new types of therapeutic intervention.
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1. The five regional finalists: Belgium, Spain, Italy, Portugal, the UK.
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