A drug that erases the barrier in hours let 50 of the hardest-to-match patients receive a kidney — 92% of the grafts were working a year on

For people whose immune systems reject almost any donor kidney, the wait can last years — or forever. Imlifidase is an enzyme treatment that clears the antibodies blocking a match within hours, opening a short window in which a transplant can go ahead. In the European PAES study of 50 such transplants, presented in the High-Impact Clinical Trials session at ASN Kidney Week 2026 in Denver, graft survival at one year was 92% and patient survival 98%, with 90% of patients free of graft failure. 'Our study shows that imlifidase can overcome this immunological barrier and enable transplantation, with very encouraging patient and kidney outcomes at 1 year,' said lead investigator Oriol Bestard of Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation