Congresswoman tours the operational hub of the world’s first organ donor bone marrow bank
INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Ossium Health hosted U.S. Representative Erin Houchin for a tour of its Indianapolis production facility, where the congresswoman observed firsthand the manufacturing operations behind the world’s first bone marrow bank sourced from deceased organ donors.
“Indiana is leading the nation in biotechnology breakthroughs and Ossium Health is at the forefront of that work,” said Rep. Houchin. “I was amazed to see its bone marrow bank firsthand and to learn about the life-saving work they are doing in our state.”
During the visit, the congresswoman toured the production and laboratory space and met with Ossium’s leadership and scientific team to learn about the company’s work to improve treatment outcomes for patients with life-threatening blood and immune diseases.
To date, 29 patients have received transplants using Ossium’s organ donor-derived bone marrow, including four patients in Indiana.
“We were glad to welcome Congresswoman Houchin to our Indianapolis facility,” said Kevin Caldwell, Ossium’s CEO, Co-Founder & President. “Every graft we release from this facility goes to a patient in our country who now has a life-saving option they didn’t have before. Having Hoosier leaders see that work up close and understand what it takes to do it matters a great deal.”
Ossium is among Indiana’s most prominent biotech employers, with all of its production, quality, and research operations anchored in Indianapolis. The company has been recognized by Fast Company as one of the Best Workplaces for Innovators and by Forbes as one of America’s Best Startup Employers. It currently has open positions in Indiana for those looking to join its growing team.
About Ossium Health
Ossium Health is a bioengineering company that leverages its proprietary organ donor bone marrow banking platform to develop stem cell therapies for patients with life-threatening hematologic conditions and musculoskeletal defects. Founded in 2016, the company is led by Kevin Caldwell, CEO, Co-Founder & President, and Erik Woods, Chief Science Officer, Co-Founder & Executive Vice President. Ossium’s manufacturing facility is registered with the FDA and its laboratory is certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). For more information, visit ossiumhealth.com or follow the company on LinkedIn and X.
Media Contact: Jane Griffin Ossium Health, Inc. 415-513-5535 [email protected]
Every September, the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA) marks World Marrow Donor Day, a global day to say #ThankYouDonor to the millions of people who register, donate, and give patients a second chance at life through stem cell and bone marrow donation. This year’s observance falls on September 22, and Ossium Health is proud to participate as a Bronze Partner.
Most World Marrow Donor Day tributes go directly to donors. Their generosity is the reason this day exists.
At Ossium, our path to honoring donors looks a little different. The donors who make our work possible are deceased organ donors whose bone marrow gifts can become a source of life-saving cell therapies. While we cannot thank these donors ourselves, we can honor their generosity, remember the lives behind every donation, and recognize the people who help carry their legacy forward.
Today, in observance of World Marrow Donor Day, we want to recognize our recovery partners.
Ossium’s recovery partners include organ procurement organizations and recovery professionals across the country who care for donors and donor families during some of life’s most difficult moments. They approach families with compassion, help communicate what donation means and what it can make possible, coordinate the donation process, and provide support and aftercare that extends far beyond recovery.
Their work creates the bridge between a family’s decision to donate and the patients who may one day receive a transplant made possible by that gift.
In the spirit of WMDA’s Hope Heroes campaign, we believe these partners deserve recognition as well. Hope Heroes can be found throughout the journey to transplantation, from the people who support donors and families to those who coordinate care and ultimately help bring a stem cell therapy to a patient in need. Our recovery partners play an essential role at the very beginning of that journey by caring for the donors and families who make it all possible.
We are grateful for every organ procurement organization that partners with Ossium and entrusts us with the opportunity to extend a donor’s gift through bone marrow donation.
We also want to recognize our past Top Recovery Partners of the Year, whose teams have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to Ossium’s mission and to honoring the gift of donation:
2025: Legacy of Life Hawai‘i
2024: LifeGift Texas
2023: Gift of Life Michigan
2022: Donor Network of Arizona
Each represents a different community, but all share something fundamental: a commitment to donors and donor families, and the possibility that one person’s gift can continue to create hope for others.
To every recovery partner working alongside Ossium, thank you.
Thank you for caring for donor families. Thank you for honoring the wishes and generosity of donors. Thank you for trusting us to help carry those gifts forward.
And most importantly, thank you for helping make it possible for someone else to receive a second chance at life.
Recognition highlights the company’s organ donor-derived bone marrow bank and its growing clinical impact
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ossium Health, a bioengineering company that built the world’s first bank of organ donor-derived bone marrow, has been named to the 2026 Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups list, Forbes’ annual selection of 20 fast-growing U.S. companies it considers most likely to reach a $1 billion valuation.
Produced by Forbes for the twelfth consecutive year, the list is selected from startups that are venture-backed, based in the United States, and currently valued at less than $1 billion. Of the 275 companies named to the list since its inception, 60% have gone on to become unicorns.
“This recognition reflects the value of the platform we’ve built and the scale of the problem it addresses,” said Kevin Caldwell, CEO, Co-Founder & President of Ossium Health. “Thousands of patients each year never reach transplant because no donor is available in the timeframe their disease allows. Our bank removes this wait from the critical path. As our bone marrow becomes more widely available over the next year, we expect to serve more patients and narrow the donor availability gap.”
Ossium has now treated 28 patients, and in every case the company’s marrow took hold and began producing healthy white blood cells in the recipient, a critical milestone known as neutrophil engraftment.
About Ossium Health
Ossium Health is a bioengineering company that leverages its proprietary organ donor bone marrow banking platform to develop stem cell therapies for patients with life-threatening hematologic conditions and musculoskeletal defects. Founded in 2016, the company is led by Kevin Caldwell, CEO, Co-Founder & President, and Erik Woods, Chief Science Officer, Co-Founder & Executive Vice President. Ossium’s manufacturing facility is registered with the FDA and its laboratory is certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). For more information, visit ossiumhealth.com or follow the company on LinkedIn and X.
Media Contact Jane Griffin Ossium Health 415-513-5535 [email protected]
Physicians at Riley Children’s Health at Indiana University (IU) Health have performed the first pediatric bone marrow transplant using Ossium’s off-the-shelf bone marrow. This milestone extends a treatment approach that has shown encouraging results in adults and is a meaningful step in expanding donor options for children.
The 14-year-old patient was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in August 2025. In January 2026, he received a first transplant using living donor stem cells, but the cells failed to engraft, meaning they did not establish themselves in his bone marrow and begin producing healthy blood cells. “When the first transplant failed and there were no remaining donor matches, we were facing a race against time,” said Dr. Jodi Skiles, medical director of Riley’s pediatric stem cell transplant program and associate professor of clinical pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine. Without a new donor quickly, the patient’s prognosis was grave.
Dr. Skiles turned to Ossium’s bank of cryopreserved bone marrow recovered from organ donors. The marrow is manufactured, cryopreserved, and held in a banked inventory, making it available for on-demand shipment within days rather than the months typically required to search for and secure a living unrelated donor graft. Ossium’s process yields more cells per donor than can be practically obtained from a living donor, allowing physicians to select an optimal cell dose. Together, immediate availability and high cell dose make the platform particularly relevant in urgent scenarios such as graft failure, donor attrition, and rapidly progressing disease.
“Because these stem cells are banked and ready to use, we were able to act in days instead of months,” Dr. Skiles said. “This treatment has the potential to dramatically expand access to transplant for children who previously had few or no remaining treatment options, giving us a way to close critical gaps in care and offer hope to families facing impossible circumstances.”
The patient received a transplant with organ donor bone marrow in March 2026 through Ossium’s HOPE Program. The cells engrafted within weeks, and the patient is now in remission.
“His story is a huge advancement for science,” Dr. Skiles said. “The fact that he survived and is thriving and got to be outpatient relatively quickly is shocking.”
Extending that capability to pediatric patients carries particular weight. For children with aggressive blood cancers, an off-the-shelf, ready-when-needed graft source offers a path to transplant that did not previously exist. Pediatric transplant cases have historically been among the most time-sensitive because pediatric disease often progresses fast, and a failed or delayed transplant can foreclose options within weeks. A graft that is characterized, banked, and ready to ship directly addresses that timeline.
The need extends well beyond leukemia. Each year, approximately 4,000 children in the US are diagnosed with blood diseases that could be successfully treated with an allogeneic bone marrow transplant, yet nearly half never receive one. In children, allogeneic transplant, which uses healthy blood-forming cells from a donor, is often the only curative option for a range of malignant diseases like acute lymphoblastic and myeloid leukemias, but also non-malignant conditions including sickle cell disease, transfusion-dependent thalassemia, severe aplastic anemia, inherited bone marrow failure syndromes such as Fanconi anemia, severe combined immunodeficiency and other primary immunodeficiencies, and certain inborn errors of metabolism. Transplant is curative for many of these diseases when a suitable donor can be found in time, yet donor access remains limited. Only about a quarter of patients have a matched sibling donor, and those who must rely on unrelated living donor registries face delays and uncertainty. A centralized bank with grafts available on demand adds donor options and removes the procurement delay that can be decisive for a young patient with rapidly progressing disease.
“Treating our first pediatric patient is a defining moment for Ossium,” said Kevin Caldwell, Ossium’s CEO, Co-Founder and President. “No child should run out of time waiting for a donor, and this milestone moves us closer to a world where none has to.”
This case also reinforces what the broader clinical experience has shown: organ donor bone marrow can engraft reliably and perform across a range of urgent and routine scenarios. This pediatric case was the 21st transplant performed with Ossium’s organ donor bone marrow, a total that has since grown to 28 patients, all of whom successfully engrafted. Treating the first pediatric patient turns possibility into precedent, laying the foundation for many more children to receive this life-saving therapy.
See more on this patient’s journey and what this advancement means for the field:
Indianapolis Biotech Marks Growing Milestone in the Fight Against Blood Cancer
INDIANAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–This week, Ossium Health hosted a facility tour and reception at its Indianapolis production facility, bringing together Indiana state officials and healthcare leaders to celebrate the company’s pioneering work in cell therapy and its contribution to Indiana’s growing biotech economy. Indiana Governor Mike Braun was among the attendees.
Located in Indianapolis, Ossium Health’s nearly 34,000-square-foot facility serves as the operational hub for the company’s groundbreaking organ donor-derived bone marrow banking platform. The facility houses five ISO 7 cleanrooms, a bulk supply warehouse, a dedicated research and development laboratory, and office space for a growing team of production specialists, researchers, and quality personnel.
Attendees toured the facility and met with Ossium’s leadership and scientific team to learn firsthand about the company’s mission to improve treatment outcomes for patients battling life-threatening blood and immune diseases.
Indiana has a long and distinguished history of advancing cell therapy for blood cancers. The science behind the world’s first cord blood transplant was pioneered at the Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine, where IU researchers provided the foundational laboratory work that made the transplant possible. Dr. Erik J. Woods, Ossium’s Chief Science Officer, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President, and Dr. W. Scott Goebel, Ossium’s Medical Director, are themselves products of this tradition. Both trained and conducted research at IU’s Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research at Riley Hospital for Children, one of the nation’s preeminent centers for pediatric hematology and oncology.
Dr. Woods developed an optimized cryopreservation method for cord blood stem cells that became widely adopted in the field, and Dr. Goebel has spent his career advancing gene therapy and cellular therapies for hematopoietic diseases at IU School of Medicine. The groundbreaking technology that enabled recovery and banking of bone marrow stem cells from organ donors was developed at Ossium’s Indiana laboratories, built in part on the deep scientific expertise Dr. Woods and Dr. Goebel developed in Indianapolis.
Ossium was founded in 2016 with a revolutionary idea: build a vast bank of bone marrow stem cells sourced from deceased organ donors to provide an off-the-shelf stem cell therapy for patients with blood cancers and immune diseases. Ossium’s bone marrow offers a lifeline to the thousands of patients who cannot find a match through the living donor registry each year, as well as those who need a high-dose, immediately available graft. To date, 23 patients have received transplants using Ossium’s organ donor-derived bone marrow, including two patients in Indiana, a testament to the real and growing impact the company is having on patients across the state and nation.
The event underscores Indiana’s emergence as a national powerhouse in life sciences. According to BioCrossroads, Indiana’s life sciences industry recently surpassed $100 billion in annual economic impact for the first time, and the state has become the nation’s top exporter of life sciences products. Governor Braun has championed a $1 billion growth initiative aimed at making Indiana the premier destination for human therapeutics, biotechnology, and related innovation, with the state’s central region identifying life sciences as a “core growth engine” in its regional development plan.
“Indiana is a national leader in life sciences, and companies like Ossium Health put our state on display,” said Indiana Governor Mike Braun. “Our state is committed to growing high-wage jobs while leading the future of medical innovation and biotech.”
“We are honored to host Governor Braun and our distinguished guests at our Indianapolis facility,” said Kevin Caldwell, Ossium’s CEO, Co-Founder and President. “Indiana has been a tremendous partner in building the infrastructure we need to pursue our mission, and this event is a meaningful recognition of the work our team does every day to save lives.”
Ossium is among Indiana’s most prominent biotech employers, with all of its production, quality, and research operations based in Indianapolis. The company has been recognized by Fast Company as one of the Best Workplaces for Innovators and by Forbes as one of America’s Best Startup Employers, and currently has several open positions in Indiana for those looking to join its growing team.
Ossium is an active participant in Indianapolis’s growing biotech community. Most recently, the company hosted Indy BioBridge’s Q1 Mixer on March 4, 2026, bringing together life sciences professionals from across the region to connect and collaborate at Ossium’s Indianapolis facility. Indy BioBridge is a networking community dedicated to cultivating relationships within Indianapolis’s rapidly expanding life sciences ecosystem.
Ossium Health is a bioengineering company that leverages its proprietary organ donor bone marrow banking platform to develop stem cell therapies for patients with life-threatening hematologic conditions and musculoskeletal defects. Founded in 2016, the company is led by Kevin Caldwell, CEO, Co-Founder & President, and Erik Woods, Chief Science Officer, Co-Founder & Executive Vice President. Ossium’s manufacturing facility is registered with the FDA and its laboratory is certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). For more information, visit ossiumhealth.com or follow the company on LinkedIn and X.
Contacts
Media Contact: Jane Griffin Ossium Health, Inc. 415-513-5535 [email protected]
For the second time in three years, Ossium Health has been named to Forbes’ list of America’s Best Startup Employers. This annual list highlights a select group of U.S. startups that demonstrate excellence in employee satisfaction, employer reputation, and organizational growth—criteria that reflect not only business performance, but the strength of a company’s culture and its ability to attract and retain exceptional talent.
At Ossium, our work is driven by a singular mission: to improve the health, vitality, and longevity of human beings through bioengineering. Achieving this mission requires bringing together individuals who are deeply committed to scientific innovation and motivated by the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on patients facing serious and life-threatening conditions. Being recognized by Forbes underscores the environment we’ve built: one where talented individuals can do their best work in pursuit of transformative medical advances.
Our team’s dedication extends beyond day-to-day responsibilities. It is reflected in the care with which we develop and deliver novel cell-based therapies, the rigor of our clinical and research programs, and the shared sense of purpose that unites our organization. We believe that fostering a mission-driven, collaborative, and supportive workplace is essential to advancing breakthroughs that save lives.
“This recognition is a direct reflection of our team and the culture we’ve built together,” said Kevin Caldwell, CEO, President & Co-founder of Ossium Health. “We’ve assembled a group of people who are not only exceptionally talented, but deeply committed to our mission. Their passion, integrity, and persistence are what enable us to pursue ambitious goals in bioengineering and deliver meaningful impact for patients. We’re honored to be recognized alongside other outstanding startups and remain focused on building an organization where people can do the most important work of their careers.”
Ossium is actively growing and looking for exceptional individuals to join our team. If you’re motivated by the opportunity to help pioneer the future of bioengineering and make a meaningful difference for patients, we encourage you to explore open roles at ossiumhealth.com/careers.
We’re grateful to our entire team for their contributions and proud to be included among this year’s Best Startup Employers.
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ossium Health, a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering off-the-shelf bone marrow therapies derived from deceased organ donors, today announced it will present new clinical data from its ongoing PRESERVE I study at the 2026 Tandem Meetings taking place on February 4-7, 2026 in Salt Lake City, UT.
Ossium will deliver one oral presentation and three poster presentations highlighting clinical experience with its cryopreserved, donor-derived bone marrow platform. The featured oral presentation will showcase first-in-human clinical data from the first four patients treated in the PRESERVE I study, marking an important milestone in the advancement of off-the-shelf bone marrow transplantation. Ossium’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Sagar Munjal, will present the study’s encouraging preliminary data, which demonstrate the safety and feasibility of transplanting bone marrow derived from deceased donors. Additional poster presentations underscore key advantages of Ossium’s off-the-shelf bone marrow platform, including its ability to provide immediate graft availability in urgent scenarios when a living donor becomes unavailable, as well as its potential to reduce relapse risk.
“These presentations highlight the growing clinical body of evidence supporting the feasibility, safety, and transformative potential of Ossium bone marrow,” said Kevin Caldwell, CEO, Co-Founder & President of Ossium Health. “We look forward to sharing insights from PRESERVE I and related clinical experience with the transplant community at Tandem.”
The company will also exhibit at Booth #106, where attendees can learn more about Ossium’s organ donor-derived bone marrow banking platform and clinical studies.
The Tandem Meetings are jointly hosted by the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT) and the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) and represent one of the premier global forums for advances in hematopoietic cell transplantation and cellular therapy.
This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Office of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR); Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, under Contract No. 75A50124C00032.
About Ossium Health
Ossium Health is a bioengineering company that leverages its proprietary organ donor bone marrow banking platform to develop stem cell therapies for patients with life-threatening hematologic conditions, organ transplant rejection, and musculoskeletal defects. Founded in 2016, the company is led by Kevin Caldwell, Chief Executive Officer, President and Co-Founder, and Erik Woods, Chief Science Officer, Executive Vice President and Co-Founder. Ossium Health’s manufacturing facility is registered with the FDA and its laboratory is certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). For more information, please visit https://ossiumhealth.com.
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–A new peer-reviewed study published in Cytotherapy, the official journal of the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (ISCT), reports early clinical experience using Ossium Health’s organ donor-derived, cryopreserved bone marrow as an off-the-shelf graft source for allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (alloHCT). The study provides the most comprehensive description to date of a fully centralized, GMP-manufactured bone marrow cryopreservation platform, demonstrating that off-the-shelf marrow can be produced at scale with exceptional consistency, long-term stability, and strong clinical performance.
For decades, allogeneic transplantation has relied on fresh grafts from living donors, accepting significant logistical risk, donor attrition, and delays that prevent many patients from ever reaching transplant. Ossium’s approach fundamentally changes that paradigm by offering a high-quality, banked graft source that can be delivered within days rather than months.
The published data highlight Ossium’s extensive cryopreservation validation. By applying novel methods along with manufacturing discipline—rather than center-specific, operator-dependent procedures—Ossium eliminates the variability that has historically plagued cryopreserved allogeneic grafts.
“The COVID-19 pandemic made it clear that cryopreservation is essential, but it also exposed how variable outcomes can be when it’s done inconsistently,” said Erik Woods, PhD, Chief Science Officer, Co-Founder, and EVP of Ossium Health. “What we’ve demonstrated here is that when cryopreservation is engineered, validated, and controlled in a true manufacturing process, you can deliver consistently high-quality bone marrow that performs clinically.”
In the study’s reported clinical experience, three high-risk patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) received cryopreserved bone marrow from Ossium through an expanded access program. All patients achieved rapid neutrophil and platelet engraftment, full donor chimerism, and successful immune reconstitution, with no infusion-related toxicity, cytokine release syndrome, or DMSO-related adverse events.
“These results reinforce that Ossium’s cryopreserved marrow is not only logistically superior—it’s biologically potent,” Woods added. “Patients were able to proceed to transplant when they needed it, not when donor logistics allowed, and there were no trade-offs in treatment outcomes.”
By demonstrating that cryopreserved bone marrow can be standardized, stable, and clinically effective, the study challenges the long-held assumption that fresh grafts are inherently superior for alloHCT. Ossium’s platform decouples transplantation from donor scheduling, transportation delays, and attrition—opening the door to faster, more predictable access to life-saving therapy and establishing a new infrastructure model for the field.
About Ossium Health
Ossium Health is a bioengineering company that leverages its proprietary organ donor bone marrow banking platform to develop stem cell therapies for patients with life-threatening hematologic conditions, organ transplant rejection, and musculoskeletal defects. Founded in 2016, the company is led by Kevin Caldwell, Chief Executive Officer, President and Co-Founder, and Erik Woods, Chief Science Officer, Executive Vice President and Co-Founder. Ossium Health’s manufacturing facility is registered with the FDA and its laboratory is certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). For more information, please visit https://ossiumhealth.com.
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