Oxford-based OrganOx, a medical device company, has raised £25 million in a growth funding round led by Lauxera Capital Partners (which invested in French meditech startup Lifen), with support from existing investors.
With the fresh funds, OrganOx will focus on expanding its commercial footprint across strategically key areas of the business. This includes expanding the customer-facing team in the US due to high interest and adoption of the OrganOx technology.
In addition, the investment will be made in new infrastructure in both the UK and the US over the coming months to facilitate and accelerate programmes within the R&D pipeline, some of which will address large and underserved markets adjacent to liver transplantation.
Sam Levy, MD, Lauxera Capital Partners, added: “Lauxera is proud and honoured to back the OrganOx team and its global commercial scale-up. This is the ninth investment made by Lauxera Growth I, a growth buy-out fund dedicated to investing in commercial-stage European and North American HealthTech businesses.”
Craig Marshall, Chief Executive Officer, OrganOx said: “We are thrilled to have Lauxera Capital Partners at the table. Their collective experiences will be invaluable to OrganOx as we execute our commercial strategy in Europe, North America and Australia. OrganOx is committed to using our NMP technology to make organs more widely available to patients who need them around the world.”
Oern Stuge, MD, MBA, Executive Chairman, OrganOx said: “This investment from Lauxera represents a diversification of the Company’s cap table and is an important step in the direction of getting ready for a potential future IPO.”
Transforms the organ transplantation process
OrganOx was founded in 2008 by renowned Oxford University Professors, Peter Friend and Constantin Coussios and is dedicated to saving lives by making every donated organ count. Its device, metra, preserves donor livers and enables assessment of the organs prior to transplantation reducing organ discard and allowing surgeons to perform transplantations during the working day rather than as an emergency at night.
OrganOx metra uses proprietary NMP technology to preserve donor livers in a functioning state for up to 24 hours prior to transplant. The fully automated NMP device enables continuous monitoring and evaluation of the liver, empowering surgeons to make evidence-based decisions on whether to transplant a donor organ, enabling viability testing and transplant of previously declined organs.
metra is commercially available in Europe with CE Mark and the United States with FDA approval. Currently, OrganOx’s kidney perfusion device in deployed for human clinical trials. Also, the company has successfully carried out over 2,500 liver transplants in Europe, the US and Australia.
