Paragonix Technologies announced that it began the full commercial launch of its Baroguard donor lung preservation system.
Baroguard, a first-of-its-kind system, offers an alternative to the current practices. These practices see donor lungs preserved and transported from an inflated state between donor and recipient. Those current organ recovery techniques fail to reliably maintain and control inflation pressures.
Related: Elekta and MSD team up for digital kidney cancer care
Baroguard combines clinically proven hypothermic preservation techniques alongside active airway management control. It ensures that the system maintains an optimal temperature range and a clinically recommended inflation pressure range. It maintains this for donor lungs throughout the journey from donor to recipient patient.
Waltham, Massachusetts-based Paragonix received FDA clearance for the Baroguard donor lung preservation system in August 2023. It successfully completed the first-in-human case using its new donor lung preservation technology in November. Before this full launch, the company conducted a limited release across five top thoracic transplant centers in the U.S. Duke Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Johns Hopkins Medicine, UCSF Health and UCLA Health all used the technology.
“The commercial launch of Baroguard represents a significant breakthrough for the organ transplantation industry,” said Dr. Lisa Anderson, CEO and president of Paragonix Technologies. “We are immensely pleased with the success it has already achieved, and we are excited to offer this game-changing technology nationwide to help transplant surgeons and their teams to innovate the standard of care in transplantation.”
Baroguard builds on Paragonix’s earlier Lungguard device for lung transportation, adding automated pressure regulation to keep the lungs inflated to an optimal pressure in transit. The company also sells its SherpaPak cardiac transport system for hearts and Liverguard for livers, with plans for a kidney device around the end of 2024.
