There are two types of dialysis: Peritoneal dialysis and Hemodialysis. The first one requires patients with kidney failure to change dialysate fluids multiple times a day and the other one chains patients to hospitals for 12-15 hours a week. Either way, none of these are letting patients with severe kidney failure live a desirable life. 

This is a reality for four million people who live with End-Stage Kidney Disease. Even for such a globally necessary health treatment such as dialysis, there’s not been any transformational innovation for several decades. Until now.

AWAK has developed a wearable and portable peritoneal dialysis system. It addresses the inherent issues with current treatment modalities and gives freedom, mobility and flexibility to patients. Weighing less than 2 kg, AWAK can be brought anywhere and provides therapy for 6-8 hours at a time. 

AWAK enables the reuse and regeneration of dialysate fluid by implementing tidal dialysis. Each cycle lasts for 7.5 minutes and generates fresh dialysate fluid at a rate of 2L per hour, providing 20L of fresh dialysate fluid in 10 hours. This would be transformational for patients. Compared to conventional PD, the amount of fluid needed per therapy is reduced by 90% and patients are free to do whatever they want meanwhile. 

This is a step in the right direction, since peritoneal dialysis has also become a preferred financial option for dialysis care across the world. If only 2% of HD patients switch over to PD, about €1.7 billion can be saved by the US Healthcare system in just 10 years.

The First-In-Human (FIH) clinical trial for AWAK PD was completed in 2018 at Singapore General Hospital, and the device was shown to be safe on 15 patients after delivering over 100 therapies. A pivotal trial will be started in early 2020 that will, hopefully, give AWAK the green light for the next steps of implementation. 

Designer: AWAK Technologies Pte Ltd
UN SDGs: Good health and well-being

AWAK from The Index Project on Vimeo. Music: Lee Rosevere