Will Lab-Grown Kidneys Fix Our Transplant Waiting Lists?

January 4, 2016

(Washington Post) – Dialysis patients make up about one percent of the Medicare population, but paying for dialysis costs seven percent of the entire Medicare budget. Clearly there is a strong need for innovative new therapies and approaches to the problem. We already have some new ideas being developed — at-home and portable dialysis, for example. Yet simply improving the existing technology is an evolutionary change, one that falls well short of what is actually needed: a new kidney that frees patients from devices entirely.