A lifelong quest to make home hemodialysis simple, safe, and effective: A review of outcomes of 12 major projects

In the course of over four decades, I have worked with an R&D team on 12 major R&D projects, all with the goal of making hemodialysis simple, safe, effective, and suitable for use in the home. Our team has worked within a University and in private companies and has collaborated with major healthcare drug and device companies. As a practicing nephrologist, my definition of success is when I see the device or drug we helped to develop in widespread clinical use. By this measure, two of the projects were highly successful, but seven failed. Most failures were due to decisions made by various corporations, governmental agencies, and venture capital groups, out of the hands or control of the R&D company. Three projects are still ongoing. There is no shortage of creativity or new ideas in nephrology and in dialysis. The major challenge is in the commercialization of the products.