ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Vantive—the kidney-care business that separated from Baxter—is pursuing a digital strategy designed to expand patient access and improve outcomes for dialysis and critical care patients.
In many areas of specialty medicine, thoroughly proven medical technologies offer significant therapeutic benefits, yet lack of a supportive delivery infrastructure limits access. Many innovators are beginning to remedy that gap, by using AI and other digital technologies to enable remote care models that keep patients and their therapeutic devices connected to caregivers. That’s the case with the emerging chronic stroke market, for example, where recovery therapies are in commercialization, calling for new kinds of support models. (MedTech Strategist will be discussing that market in an upcoming issue.)
These hurdles exist for older, established technologies, too. Consider the case of peritoneal dialysis for end-stage kidney disease; the concept behind this blood purification modality was advanced in the 1940s, and Baxter was the first to make this therapy broadly available to patients in the 1960s. It’s a way for patients to opt for the quality of life offered by a home-based therapy as an alternative to in-clinic hemodialysis. Yet today, 90% of dialysis occurs in hemodialysis clinics, which is not as patient-friendly, cost-effective, or physiological as peritoneal dialysis. Enabling patients to choose the best therapy for their own situation is one of the goals of Vantive, which emerged when the private equity firm Carlyle bought Baxter’s kidney care businesses for $3.8 billion in 2024.
