To create a Bioartificial Liver; a breakthrough in liver disease as important as dialysis was for kidney failure, which will save millions of lives worldwide.
Categories
Beneficiaries
Situation
Liver Disease itself is the 5th leading cause of death in the UK for under 65s and the 2nd commonest cause of death in middle aged UK men; gloablly the WHO estimates it leads to 1-2 million deaths a year. Whilst a liver transplant is an effective way of managing conditions that cause acute and chronic liver failure, only 2 in 3 people on the transplant list in the UK get a new liver in time; given that 80% of those with acute liver failure will die without a transplant this is a huge problem.
Solution
The very nature of the liver provides us with an unique opportunity -given time it will regrow after acute damage. Thus, our solution - the bioartificial liver temporarily replaces liver function, giving the liver those critical few days necessary to heal. We have developed HepatiCan - a bioartificial liver machine used outside the body. The next steps are to take it to patients in clinical trials which will require considerable resource , including regulatory work and documentation.