The University of Oxford spinout has developed two of the most complex medical devices designed and built in the UK, that maintain livers and kidneys in a functioning state outside of the body for twice as long as conventional cold preservation techniques. In doing so, its technology dramatically increases the number of transplants for patients, eradicating night-time operations for clinicians, and reducing overall healthcare costs for providers.
A third, patient-connected device can also be used to provide ‘liver dialysis’ either using a human or porcine organ within the body by perfusing it with a red-cell suspension reconstituted from the donor blood of the same blood type. This enables fully automated, operator-independent preservation of an organ in a functioning state outside the body for up to 24 hours clinically, and several days pre-clinically.
OrganOx joins prestigious ranks of medical innovation
The technology, which was initially engineered to preserve livers, has enabled over 6,000 transplants across four continents and twelve countries. Medical facilities who have adopted the technology have reported up to a 30% net increase in transplants, with waiting times and waiting list mortality cut by more than half.
The device for preserving livers and its more recent counterpart for kidneys are highly complex. Providing hydraulic, pneumatic and haemodynamic sub-systems and remote-access capabilities, both devices can be used safely in operating theatres, during transport by road or in flight, or when directly connected to a patient when providing extracorporeal liver support.
OrganOx was named the recipient of the 2025 MacRobert Award at the Royal Academy of Engineering awards dinner on 8th July at The Londoner Hotel. The team behind the solution was presented with the MacRobert Award gold medal and a prize of £50,000 by Science Minister Lord Vallance KCB HonFREng FRS FMedSci.
The award, which is run by the Royal Academy of Engineering, has recognised UK engineering that demonstrates commerciality and societal benefit for more than 55 years. From EMI in 1972 for the CT scanner to Touch Bionics in 2008 for the world’s first bionic hand, OrganOx joins the prestigious ranks of companies whose medical innovations have earned them this award.
“Despite facing stiff competition from our other two finalists, Synthesia and Microsoft Azure Fibre, OrganOx is a worthy winner of the MacRobert Award, which has been celebrating the strength, creativity and global impact of British engineering for more than half a century,” said Dr Alison Vincent CBE FREng, Chair of the MacRobert Award
judging panel. “OrganOx has developed a truly game-changing and life-saving innovation that is at the forefront of efforts to increase the number of donor organs available for transplantation.”
“Biology teaches engineers a lesson in humility. The liver and kidney represent two of the most non-linear and multivariate systems to attempt to control and emulate but the reward for eventually doing so successfully after two decades of effort is immense,” added Professor Constantin Coussios OBE FREng FMedSci, Co-Founder of OrganOx, along with liver transplant surgeon Professor Peter Friend FMedSci FRCS. “Each quality-assured organ that has functioned effectively in our devices outside the body saves the life of a patient, over 6,000 to date, and gives that patient and their loved ones the gift of time and a quality of life previously thought irreclaimable. This achievement and the many more to come would not have been possible without the academic, technological and translational excellence of the UK innovation ecosystem.
“Peter and I would like to express our deepest gratitude to the exceptional OrganOx multi-disciplinary team for its dedication in bringing the metra device for liver and kidney to life, and to the Royal Academy of Engineering for the recognition of the impact that OrganOx’ groundbreaking organ technologies are having on patients, surgeons and the cost-effectiveness of healthcare systems globally.”
