Drones could deliver pig-to-human transplants: Rothblatt

Martine Rothblatt, futurist and founder of Sirius XM, says by the time her biotech company's genetically modified transplant organs are in use, drones will likely deliver them. Rothblatt gave her view of the future at The Washington Post's Transformers conference Wednesday. Her United Therapeutics company, which has offices is Silver Spring, Md. and Research Triangle Park, N.C., is raising pigs with genome modifications its researchers hope will improve the animals' organs for transplant recipients. Pigs organs, because of their size and function, make good transplant material, but often the patient is trading their current disease for "a chronic organ rejection kind-of-disease that ultimately takes the life of many, if not most, people who receive transplants," she said. The company hopes to begin trials on organ transplants from genetically-modified pigs by the end of the decade, with regulatory approval ten years from now, Rothblatt said.