Artificial Wombs for Premature Babies Are a Step Closer to Reality
The first artificial womb to gestate a human baby is fast approaching reality. Food and Drug Administration regulators will weigh next week how scientists should conduct the first human tests of bag-like wombs, meant to nurture babies born so premature that modern medicine struggles to keep them healthy. The agency plans to meet with outside advisers and discuss behind closed doors what the agency called “confidential commercial information," citing a federal law that allows nonpublic meetings to discuss trade secrets.
The agency hasn’t disclosed which company’s work will be discussed. Philadelphia-based Vitara Biomedical has said that it is working on an artificial womb and is close to human clinical trials. A company executive said at a biotech symposium last year that the firm is commercializing the research of one of two U.S.
groups known to be testing the technology on lambs. The other U.S. group says it is still a few years off from human trials.
Vitara didn’t respond to inquiries from The Wall Street Journal, and a scientist involved with the company declined to comment. Vitara’s artificial womb looks like a plastic bag with connected tubes—some to deliver fresh amniotic fluid and others to provide oxygen and medications to the fetus through its umbilical blood vessels, according to published research. Scientists have said they aim for it to nurture premature babies born at 23 to 25 weeks of gestational age, allowing their lungs to develop at least several more weeks in the fluid environment so helpful to their growth.
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