United Therapeutics Corporation (UT) announced that the world's first recipient of an investigational genetically-modified xenotransplanted organ, UT's UHeart™, reached a two-week milestone. University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) surgeons report continued post-operative cardiovascular improvement in the patient with normal organ function. In addition, the first peer-reviewed publication of a similarly gene-edited investigational xenograft, UT's UKidney™, in a human preclinical model at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine (UAB) was published in the American Journal of Transplantation. These major medical milestones come on the heels of the September 2021 historic transplant of UT's UThymoKidney™ at New York University Langone Health (NYU). That human preclinical model proved for the first time that UT's GalSafe™ pig could, as modified, transcend the most proximate immunological barriers to xenotransplantation. The GalSafe pig was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for human food and as a potential source for biomedical use in December 2020. These achievements rely on UT's development, through its Revivicor subsidiary, of genetically modified pigs that are designed to provide a supply of organs for people who are unable to receive human organ donations. Drone delivery of organs. UT's historic October 2021 first-ever delivery of a transplanted lung by electric drone at Toronto General Hospital, demonstrating the feasibility of UT's goal to deliver its transplantable organs with zero carbon footprint aircraft; and Ex-vivo lung perfusion. More than 200 human donor lungs successfully transplanted after being saved from disposal by UT's subsidiary Lung Bioengineering at its facilities in Silver Spring, Maryland and on the Mayo Clinic campus in Jacksonville, Florida.
Dr. Rothblatt noted that hundreds of people had made important contributions to UT's recent xenotransplantation successes, and as leader of the project she wanted to publicly acknowledge three key mentors: Dr. Tom Starzl, who served on UT's Scientific Advisory Board until his passing in 2017, and taught how the body can be induced to tolerate xenografts; Sir Magdi Yacoub, who continues to serve on UT's Scientific Advisory Board and guides the company through multiple transplantation technologies; and Dr. Craig Venter, whose team at Synthetic Genomics (now UT's Exponential Biotherapeutic Engineering group) provided essential porcine gene engineering expertise.