The first blood group incompatible kidney transplant using Glycosorb® ABO performed in South Africa

In February 2023 the transplant team at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, as the first hospital on the African continent, performed a blood group incompatible kidney transplant using Glycosorb® ABO on a patient who had been on the transplant waiting list for almost 10 years. “The Groote Schuur Hospital transplant team are excited to be able to bring this technology to our patients, allowing more patients access to transplantation,” said Dr Zunaid Barday, Nephrologist at Groote Schuur Hospital.

As with most patients needing a kidney transplant, the journey for this patient has not been easy. In December 2013, she was admitted to hospital where she was due to give birth to her third child. At this same time her kidneys failed. She was immediately transferred to Groote Schuur Hospital for treatment. She was placed on a renal dialysis treatment program and has been on dialysis since then. A procedure to remove waste products and excess fluid from the blood when the kidneys stop working properly.

The patient has been on the kidney transplant waiting list since then, as she had no blood group compatible donors and she is blood group O, for which the waiting list has gotten longer over the years, and COVID exacerbated this even more. With the Glycosorb® ABO medical device a blood group incompatible kidney transplant from a living donor was possible. “I was so overwhelmed as this was not an easy journey and so I am grateful that I could have the transplant. I can now live a normal life and provide for my children,” the patient said after the transplantation.

“The Groote Schuur Hospital transplant team are excited to be able to bring this technology to our patients, allowing more patients access to transplantation, and continuing our proud legacy of innovation in transplantation. With this technology, we can now safely transplant many patients across incompatible blood groups, which was an absolute barrier previously. This will allow potential living kidney donors who were turned down previously because they were the wrong blood group for the person they wanted to donate to, to come forward again to be retested. This should result in more patients who have been on the transplant waiting list, sometimes for many years, to get a successful kidney transplant,” said Dr Zunaid Barday, Nephrologist at Groote Schuur Hospital.

“We at Glycorex, together with our South African distributor partner Coligo Medical, are grateful to have been able to support Dr Barday and the Groote Schuur Hospital Renal Transplant Unit in successfully performing the first blood group incompatible kidney transplant with our medical device Glycosorb® ABO in South Africa. We are dedicated to continuing the collaboration with health care professionals around the world to enable more patients to undergo a life changing transplantation,” said Johan Lavén, CEO at Glycorex Transplantation AB.

Contact

Johan Lavén, CEO
Glycorex Transplantation AB
E-mail: info@glycorex.se
Phone: + 46 46-286 52 30

Brief information about the company

Glycosorb® ABO is one of Glycorex Transplantation AB's self-developed proprietary medical devices that is used clinically in five continents to facilitate blood group-incompatible transplants, especially in kidney transplants from related living donors, but the product is also used in liver, heart, lung, and stem cell transplantation. The product has so far been used in more than 6,000 transplants. The short- and long-term results are excellent. The results have been presented in over 60 scientific articles in reputable medical journals. Each kidney transplant saves about 150 dialysis treatments per year and has been estimated to save up to SEK 5 million in dialysis costs alone. In addition to Europe, the product is used in Australia, Canada, India, Israel, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa and Thailand, for example.

The company has also developed a CE-marked medical device product for the production of universal blood plasma and are developing products for the specific reduction of autoantibodies in the treatment of autoimmune diseases. The company is collaborating with a leading European research institute to develop a product for the treatment of the autoimmune disease rheumatoid arthritis. There are approximately 5 million patients in the EU who have this disease.

Glycorex Transplantation AB (publ) is listed on NGM Main Regulated Equity (Nordic Growth Market) and is traded under the symbol GTAB B.