The alternative to a donor organ market is additional financial incentives to develop and improve implantable artificial organs.
Currently, you need a bulky external machine for hemodialysis. At first, they were available only in hospitals, then in outpatient clinics. Now people can keep such machines at home, and use them as they sleep. I would predict that these machines would first become cheaper, until hitting a cost threshold, then become smaller, until hitting the size of a large suitcase. Then they would have an implantable component, and an external satchel-sized wearable component. Then development would stall until the patents run out.
As dialysis treatment runs about 6% (!) of the Medicare budget, one might think that the US would have a significant incentive to fund research into reducing the cost of treatment for kidney disease. Sadly, this does not appear to be the case.
Most of that money is now going to private dialysis companies that have optimized their business models around the Medicare payment rules. Their incentives are not to improve patient care, but to suck as much federal money out of the trough as possible.
Currently, you need a bulky external machine for hemodialysis. At first, they were available only in hospitals, then in outpatient clinics. Now people can keep such machines at home, and use them as they sleep. I would predict that these machines would first become cheaper, until hitting a cost threshold, then become smaller, until hitting the size of a large suitcase. Then they would have an implantable component, and an external satchel-sized wearable component. Then development would stall until the patents run out.
As dialysis treatment runs about 6% (!) of the Medicare budget, one might think that the US would have a significant incentive to fund research into reducing the cost of treatment for kidney disease. Sadly, this does not appear to be the case.
Most of that money is now going to private dialysis companies that have optimized their business models around the Medicare payment rules. Their incentives are not to improve patient care, but to suck as much federal money out of the trough as possible.