Pig Liver Trial

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the first clinical trial to test whether gene-edited pig livers can temporarily support people with sudden liver failure who are ineligible for human organ transplants. Instead of receiving a new liver, the patients will be connected to an external device that filters their blood through a pig liver for 72 hours, giving their own liver time to recover and hopefully regenerate.

The trial, led by biotech firm eGenesis and medical device maker OrganOx, will enroll up to 20 patients between the ages of 10 and 70 with acute-on-chronic liver failure (a sudden worsening of liver disease) or hepatic encephalopathy (a brain disorder caused by reduced liver function). Participants will be monitored for a year to assess safety and liver function changes. Earlier tests in the US using deceased patients showed the pig livers could function for two to three days.

Roughly 35,000 patients are hospitalized each year in the US for acute or acute-on-chronic liver failure, many of whom can’t get a timely human transplant.