Bridge to Life has raised $110m to support the advance of its perfusion system for preserving donor livers ahead of transplantation.
The Illinois-based company’s Series C equity financing round was led by new investor Soleus Capital, along with Lauxera Capital Partners and individual investors.
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Bridge to Life’s VitaSmart hypothermic oxygenated perfusion (HOPE) system secured de novo clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in January 2026, becoming the first and only such system authorised by the agency for use in liver transplantation.
Announcing in November 2024 that it had completed more than 5,000 liver perfusions worldwide using its HOPE liver preservation technique in combination VitaSmart, Bridge to Life acquired the system from its original developer, Italy’s Medica SpA, in December 2024.
Ahead of liver transplant procedures, VitaSmart pumps a preservation solution continuously through the organ at temperatures between 1°C and 10°C, unlike the standard cold storage methods where organs are stored at colder temperatures.
With waitlists for liver transplants including tens of thousands of people in the US, technology that facilitates timely organ acceptance is well aligned with investor priorities.
With the latest funds, which bring Bridge to Life’s total funding to date to around $160m, the company intends to apply the majority of proceeds towards supporting VitaSmart’s ongoing US rollout by financing necessitates such as expanding its field team.
Meanwhile, remaining funds will go towards advancing Bridge to Life’s new product pipeline, which includes a tool for assessing organ viability, along with broadening its organ preservation portfolio and scaling its global operations, the company stated.
Don Webber, Bridge to Life’s president and CEO, commented: “The VitaSmart launch has outpaced our expectations, as leading academic centres are adopting it rapidly. This financing enables us to meet that demand while advancing a pipeline that expands beyond liver transplantation to other solid organ transplants.”
VitaSmart launched in the US in Q1 2026, with Duke University Hospital becoming the first organ transplant centre to implement the system in March. Results from Bridge to Life’s Bridge to HOPE pivotal trial (NCT05045794) that supported VitaSmart’s de novo clearance from the FDA were published in JAMA Surgery in May. The study’s results demonstrated that HOPE expands the use of marginal donor organs, thereby increasing transplant availability for patients, among other findings.
