ScubaTx Designs for the Realities of Organ Preservation

Organ preservation encompasses hospitals, transport routes, flights and their delays, handoffs, and staffing constraints, all under time pressure. ScubaTx, a medical equipment manufacturing company founded in 2020 and headquartered in Manchester, UK, is developing a platform for preserving human organs under such challenges.

ScubaTx focuses on advanced temperature control and persufflation, an advanced organ preservation technique used in transplantation to keep donor organs viable longer. According to ScubaTx Mechanical Engineer Alex Cleaver, Sr., “ScubaTx is an organ preservation device; the key technology is persufflation.” 

Persufflation delivers oxygenated gas through chilled organs during preservation. “We can cool organs down for transport and provide oxygen to those organs by persefflating gas through them,” adds Cleaver. The goal is to help organs remain viable longer so they can travel farther.

“With an organ transplant, many organs are available that can't be used because they can't reach a recipient in time,” explains ScubaTx Technical Director Martin Emms. “The ScubaTx product keeps that organ at a much ‘happier’ temperature. That organ can actually travel for longer, so it gives more people a chance of having an organ [transplant].”

The ScubaTx team needed access to capable design tools without losing control of cash flow or delaying development. “The SOLIDWORKS® Startup Program was absolutely critical to us because as a startup, cashflow and funding is always something that we're cognizant of,” Cleaver emphasizes. “Having a really powerful piece of [product development] software is absolutely critical.”

ScubaTx used SOLIDWORKS Design as part of a broader workflow for designing, developing, reviewing, and preparing files for manufacture. Emms notes, “As technical director, I'm interested in the [design] review and release process.” The 3DEXPERIENCE® platform provided a cloud-based environment with built-in data management and collaboration tools. ScubaTx established a structured review-and-release workflow to make sure every design is checked before it goes to manufacturing. 

For collaboration, ScubaTx leveraged the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to share design data without relying on its own infrastructure. “3DEXPERIENCE for us is absolutely critical for sharing files with our suppliers,” Cleaver enthuses. “The cloud-based system is really a robust way of storing the data and avoids us having to manage our own infrastructure.”

Building Confidence Before Prototypes

Because thermal performance is critical, simulation became part of the ScubaTx development process. “Thermal simulations have allowed us to quickly prototype ideas without spending lots of money on building a physical prototype,” Emms explains. Cleaver adds, “We have more confidence when we produce a prototype with Flow Simulation.”

ScubaTx also used SOLIDWORKS Visualize to support communication. For a pre-commercial medical device company, demonstrating progress is part of building understanding around a device that is still being developed. “SOLIDWORKS Visualize has been important for us to produce product renders,” Cleaver notes. “As a startup, we need to show our development progress and communicate that message to the market.” SOLIDWORKS Visualize helps build credibility before a finished physical prototype is available.

Engineering Toward Transplant Reality

ScubaTx is trying to expand a complex preservation concept toward practical use. For a company working in organ preservation, that discipline supports a larger objective: designing for the realities of transplant logistics, not ideal conditions. “It feels fantastic to be creating a product that could eventually save lives and give more people a chance to get a transplant,” Emms enthuses. “It allows us to essentially do something that makes you glad to get up in the morning to see if you can make a difference.”