Promising ideas and solutions to transform health care locally and globally are plentiful at Stanford Medicine and just waiting for the right support and resources to take them to the next level. Enter the Stanford Medicine Catalyst program.
The Catalyst program nurtures and supports health care innovations by enabling teams across Stanford Medicine to develop and scale high-potential ideas. Catalyst provides financial and operational support, program management, business and regulatory strategy, mentorship, Stanford pilot and clinical studies, and access to an investor network.
Since its founding in 2020, Catalyst has awarded 25 project teams across three cohorts. Interested teams can preview application questions on the Catalyst website to prepare for the current application window that opened on Sept. 6.
One of the projects in Catalyst’s 2023 cohort is the KidneyPod, a novel organ transplantation device that maintains organs at an optimal temperature throughout the transplantation procedure. Keith Hansen, MD, is the team project co-lead, along with Marc Melcher, MD, PhD, chief of Stanford Transplantation. Hansen, the founder and CEO of Diatiro, the company that developed the Kidney pod, shares how the Catalyst program has helped accelerate the team’s work.
Q: What is the KidneyPod?
The team’s company name, Diatiro, is a classic Greek word that means to preserve, which aligns with the broader vision to improve transplant preservation for all organs, leading to an increase in the number of usable organs for the hundreds of thousands of patients on the transplant waitlist.
During a kidney (or other organ) transplant, every second counts. Organs can warm dangerously while they’re being sewn into the patient, and every minute of sewing leads to worse outcomes for the patient. The KidneyPod is essentially like a ‘koozie’ for a kidney during a transplant process. It is a single-use device that uses an insulating sleeve and phase-change material to maintain the kidney at the optimal 2-6°C temperature range during sew-in.
Q: What are the benefits of the project?
Currently, one out of three transplant patients go back on dialysis after a kidney transplant (also called delayed graft function or DGF), at a cost of ~$20,000 per patient. Clinical data shows tight intra-operative temperature regulation would reduce DGF, extend organ longevity, and increase the number of organs we transplant. The Kidney pod has the potential to enable 5,000 patients to stay off dialysis post-transplant, extend kidney function by three to five years and increase the number of transplants to an additional 2,500 patients, saving more than $2 billion in the U.S. annually.
Q: What are some of the benefits of working with the Catalyst program?
Catalyst got us to a point where we were able to get through testing prototypes and getting to a final device. We met with the Catalyst team weekly to go through everything and keep things on track and moving forward. They gave us advice on our product, company, and team development, and connected us to relevant contacts across Stanford and our main venture capital funding. They also provided funding to buy the materials to build our thermodynamic proof of concept, complete testing with surgeons and purchase the final device and materials.
Q: What’s next for your project?
We are currently full steam ahead. We have a team of engineers and designers working with our manufacturing partners to produce this device. We are also going through our verification validation and testing to submit to the Food and Drug Administration and aiming to be used in surgery for patients as soon as possible.
Is your project the next Catalyst innovation?
The KidneyPod project is just one example of the innovative work being supported by the Catalyst program. The program is helping to accelerate the development of several new health care technologies that have the potential to improve the lives of patients around the world.
Catalyst is seeking health care innovations from all members of the Stanford community (faculty, university and health care staff, and students) that can significantly impact global health care. Catalyst will award select projects with validated science that hold the promise of becoming world-changing solutions and are ready to be implemented through piloting, advanced prototype development, or early-stage utilization.
Take the next steps by:
Reviewing the Catalyst site for additional details and FAQs.
Evaluating whether your project might be a good fit.
Interested teams can preview application questions on the Catalyst site to prepare for the current application window.
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