A Recap of the Inaugural New Zealand PD Utilisation Summit

Written by Rob Robinson, Business Development Manager, Peritoneal Dialysis

The inaugural Vantive NZ PD Summit was held in Auckland in July 2025. This was the first NZ meeting held by Vantive (formerly Baxter Kidney care segment), and was attended by over 35 delegates from around NZ, keen to hear presentations from leading PD specialists. Content from Dr Mark Marshall, Dr Michael Cai and Prof Paul Bennett focused on Enabling access to peritoneal dialysis for more patients.

Vantive’s Marketing and Market Access Manager PD, Jane Walton, kicked the meeting off with an introduction to Vantive, building on a 70-year legacy as a leader in kidney care innovation to advance its mission of extending lives and expanding possibilities. Jane covered the core activities of Vantive with some insight into the investment and future activities which will offer further benefits to patients and health care professionals across the ANZ region.

Informative and current practice and trends were presented by Dr Mark Marshall, who also highlighted the many benefits that PD brings to both patients and health services with examples from around the world showing how policy can affect take on rates for PD. Dr. Marshall was followed by Dr Michael Cai who joined via video link and provided practical advice on how to encourage and drive PD take on rates.

Prof. Paul Bennett was in attendance and provided some unique insight into his time and experience in the San Jose area where he was instrumental in setting up an Assisted PD program in 16 clinics. Dr Bennett advised of the type of support offered by an Assisted PD program, and interestingly, one of the main reasons for referral into the program was simply patient anxiety, often leading to short term support before the patient gained confidence to perform PD independently. Over 90% of patients were discharged to their own self care without staff assistance and a high percentage of Assisted PD patients remained on PD independently at the 6 and 12 month follow up period.

The summit concluded with a lively debate between members of the NZ renal community arguing that NZ had reached the limit of home therapy as a mode of dialysis treatment. The debate was moderated by Richard Booth, Vantive Medical Lead, who used the crowd clap-o-metre to award the win – of course we can increase home therapy in NZ!