Healthy kidneys automatically filter waste from the blood 24/7. But for millions of people with advanced kidney disease – including about 570,000 Americans — that essential task is no longer automatic.

The job of failed kidneys must be done by a long, exhausting process called dialysis at least several times a week.

About 90 percent of people with kidney failure spend half their remaining lifetime hooked up to dialysis machines and traveling to and from dialysis clinics.

The poor quality of life for dialysis patients became a personal concern of medical device executive Hezkiah Tsoory in 2014, when his own father began this life-supporting treatment.

“Together with a group of scientists, engineers and nephrology [kidney] experts, we came up with a solution that will enable patients and their families to do home dialysis in a very scalable, safe way: a Digital Dialysis Clinic,” says Tsoory, CEO of liberDi based in Or Akiva, Israel.

“Our system is positioned to replace traditional full-service, in-clinic care with a self-care system suitable for many people on or requiring dialysis.”

A Trendlines portfolio company, liberDi received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2019 research and innovation program and won first prize in the 2021 Medimor-Poriyah Medical Center MedTech Startup Contest.

Last December, liberDi received regulatory clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Soon, patients in Israel and the United States will be able to dialyze by themselves at home or at work, monitored by their physician via smartphone.

Video source - liberDi/Youtube