Quanta Dialysis Brand Guidelines: A 2008 Warwickshire Start, the SC+ & a MacRobert Award

From juice dispensers to dialysis.

Quanta Dialysis Technologies is a British medical-device company built around a single product: a compact haemodialysis machine. The UK company register, Companies House, lists Quanta Dialysis Technologies Limited as incorporated on 8 July 2008 under an earlier name, Quanta Fluid Solutions, with its registered office in Warwick. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, reporting in July 2022, called it a Warwickshire team.

The origin story is unusual. Quanta was “spun out from a larger parent company,” the Institution of Mechanical Engineers reported, and adapted technology from a device that reconstituted orange juice at fast-food outlets. The Royal Academy of Engineering put it the same way in its July 2022 announcement, quoting the chair of its judging panel, Professor Sir Richard Friend: the company “traces back to technology first developed for use in fruit juice dispensers.” The same announcement said the team had been working on the machine for a decade.

The academy named the team behind the machine, including the chief engineer and technology officer, Professor Clive Buckberry, and Keith Heyes, described as the original inventor. Leadership has since changed. In September 2022 the company named Alejandro Galindo, formerly an executive at MannKind, as chief executive, succeeding an interim chief executive, Hooman Hakami, who returned to the board; the company’s own website now lists Hakami as chairman. Quanta’s press releases are datelined Beverly, Massachusetts, reflecting its push into the American market.

A cartridge instead of a plumbing system.

The product was first known as the SC+. The Royal Academy of Engineering described it in 2022 as a portable, easy-to-use haemodialysis machine that runs on a proprietary single-use cartridge. Each cartridge holds a series of pneumatic membrane pumps instead of the piston-driven pumps found in traditional machines, and the cartridge removes the need for disinfection between treatments, the academy said. Professor Buckberry told the academy that conventional haemodialysis machines are “the size of a fridge-freezer”; the Institution of Mechanical Engineers reported that the SC+ weighed 32kg and that the tubing of a conventional machine is “compressed” into the flat cartridge. A cloud-based digital health platform works alongside the machine for treatment data, remote monitoring and technical support, the same report said.

The machine was already cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration and on sale in the United States by July 2022, the academy said, and Quanta had supplied its entire UK stock of SC+ machines to the National Health Service during the Covid-19 lockdown. That year it won the academy’s MacRobert Award, which the academy calls the UK’s longest-running and most prestigious award for engineering innovation; the Princess Royal presented it on 12 July 2022. Earlier winners named by the academy include Rolls-Royce, Arup and Raspberry Pi.

In November 2024 the company said the FDA had given the system 510(k) clearance for use at home, following a clinical trial it calls HOME RUN, and that the SC+ was “now known as the Quanta Dialysis System.” Its chief executive said the pivotal trial had been recruited and run during the height of Covid-19, and that the company planned its home launch with customers who had first used the machine in acute and sub-acute settings. It says the platform covers intermittent haemodialysis, sustained low-efficiency dialysis and continuous renal replacement therapy, from hospital wards to the home. Later that month it announced a Series E funding round, its latest stated in the sources, to expand its US commercial presence.

How kidney-care companies present themselves.

Dialysis and kidney-care companies sell to two audiences at once. One is clinical: nephrologists, nurses, technicians and hospital buyers who choose machines, dialyzers and solutions. The other is the patient, who may spend several sessions a week in a treatment chair or carry out dialysis at home. Their imagery tends to answer both: a calm patient in a reclining chair beside a machine, a nurse in a bright, orderly clinic, and close-ups of dialyzers, tubing and the screens of haemodialysis machines.

Home treatment has added a second setting. Peritoneal dialysis and home haemodialysis bring the equipment into kitchens, bedrooms and living rooms, and the companies that make or support it often show machines beside sofas and tables rather than in clinical rooms. Symbols tend to stay simple: kidney shapes, drops, waves and circles that print clearly on a label, a machine housing or a clinic sign.

The trade meets at a few large congresses. The American Society of Nephrology’s Kidney Week, held in Denver in 2026, drew nearly 12,000 participants from close to 100 countries, the society says, and makers such as Fresenius Medical Care list it among their events. In Europe, the European Renal Association holds an annual congress, scheduled for Rotterdam in 2027 and Berlin in 2028, according to the association.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each company: who founded it, who owns it, where it works and what it makes. Where a fact rests only on a company’s own word, we say so, and the colours and typefaces shown are our own interpretation rather than any official brand standard.

Simply Smarter Dialysis.

Quanta presents itself with a short promise: its website carries the line “Simply Smarter Dialysis” as a trademark beside the company name. Its marketing leans on the machine’s small size, its cartridge and its ease of training, and on the award: its homepage sets the MacRobert Award beside its 2022 and 2024 FDA clearances. The name itself changed with the product. The company moved from Quanta Fluid Solutions to Quanta Dialysis Technologies, and the product from the SC+ to the Quanta Dialysis System, so that the company and the machine now share one word.

The story the brand tells is one of engineering rather than of medicine: a British team, a juice-dispenser pump turned into a dialysis cartridge, and a national engineering prize. The Royal Academy of Engineering judged the SC+ on engineering innovation, commercial success and social benefit, it said, and its citation dwelt on the cartridge and the pumps. For a designer, that gives a clear visual idea to work with: the flat cartridge that the academy and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers both singled out.

Ownership sits with private investors. The company describes the 2024 round as including existing shareholders, and its board lists non-executive directors alongside the chairman; the November 2024 round was led by Novo Holdings, Glenview Capital and b2venture, the company said.

For a design guide, Quanta Dialysis shows how a small engineering company can build a brand around one compact machine and one memorable origin story. Compare Outset Medical, another maker of a compact dialysis system, and NxStage, an American maker of home-dialysis machines. For this guide we use a deep teal, night blue and a soft mint with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Quanta Dialysis’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.