UK Health Body Backs NHS Funding For Liver Perfusion Device
Bridge to Life Ltd., a Duluth, Georgia-based maker of organ preservation technology, said this week that Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has issued guidance supporting routine funding by the National Health Service for machine perfusion devices used to preserve donor livers, including the company’s VitaSmart hypothermic oxygenated perfusion system.
The recommendation, published August 20 under reference number HTG780, followed a review by NICE of ex-situ machine perfusion devices used to condition deceased-donor livers before transplantation. The agency concluded that advanced perfusion systems offer clear clinical and financial advantages over traditional static cold storage, the method that has long been the default approach for keeping donor organs viable during transport and preparation for surgery. NICE specifically cited improved graft survival and fewer biliary complications associated with hypothermic oxygenated perfusion, often referred to in the field as HOPE.
Don Webber, chief executive and chairman of Bridge to Life, described the guidance as a milestone for establishing oxygenated perfusion as a standard of care in liver transplantation. He noted that European transplant centers have used HOPE protocols for more than a decade, and said endorsement from a body as widely respected as NICE strengthens confidence in the therapy’s clinical and economic case, even as American surgeons are just beginning to adopt the technology following a de novo authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Rebeca Sanabria Mateos, a liver transplant surgeon at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, said routine NHS funding for devices like VitaSmart would allow surgical teams to use organs from donors who meet broader acceptance criteria with more confidence, while also simplifying operating room logistics.
VitaSmart delivers an oxygenated preservation solution to donor livers ahead of transplantation, a process intended to reduce cellular damage that can occur during the period between organ recovery and implantation. Bridge to Life has positioned the system as a lower-cost, simpler alternative to normothermic machine perfusion platforms, which keep organs at body temperature and generally require more complex equipment and staffing. The company said VitaSmart is now available in the United States, the United Kingdom, continental Europe, Saudi Arabia, India and other markets that recognize CE marking.
The NICE decision arrives amid a broader shift in transplant medicine toward machine perfusion technologies, which health systems in Europe and North America have increasingly adopted as a way to preserve organs for longer periods and expand the pool of usable donor organs. Static cold storage, in which organs are simply chilled and transported, has been standard practice for decades but offers limited ability to assess or improve organ function before transplantation. Machine perfusion systems, by contrast, allow surgical teams to continuously supply oxygen and nutrients to an organ outside the body, potentially making organs from older or higher-risk donors viable for transplant.
Donor organ shortages remain a persistent challenge for health systems worldwide, and regulators and clinicians have looked to perfusion technology as one tool to narrow the gap between the number of patients awaiting transplants and the supply of usable organs. National reimbursement decisions such as the one issued by NICE can influence how quickly hospitals adopt new equipment, since funding certainty often determines whether transplant centers invest in specialized perfusion machines and staff training. Bridge to Life’s existing product line also includes Belzer UW, a cold storage and flush solution the company describes as a widely used standard in abdominal organ transplantation.
Bridge to Life said it plans to continue expanding its perfusion offerings alongside its established preservation solutions as transplant programs in the U.S. and abroad evaluate machine perfusion adoption. The company said its commercial growth in the United States has accelerated since receiving FDA de novo authorization for the technology.
Details of the announcement were reported by PR Newswire.
