On Dec. 17, 2024, United Therapeutics, a public benefit corporation, announced the world’s first transplant of a UKidney, which it produced, into a living person on November 25, 2024.

The transplant is the fourth xenotransplant using United Therapeutics’ xeno organs into living humans, following two successful UHeart transplants at the University of Maryland Medicine in 2022 and 2023 and a successful UThymoKidney transplant at NYU Langone Health earlier this year.

The transplant was authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the expanded access pathway, also known as “compassionate use,” and performed by surgeons at NYU Langone Health led by Robert Montgomery, M.D., DPhil.

United Therapeutics’ xenokidney, known by the proposed trade name UKidney, is an investigational xenokidney from a pig with 10 gene edits. Six human genes are added to the pig genome to facilitate immune acceptance of the organ, while four genes are inactivated: three that contribute to porcine organ rejection in humans and one that can cause organ growth beyond what is normal for humans.