Category: News

The Return to the Office in San Francisco

Since the beginning of the pandemic, our facility in Indianapolis has had business-critical employees onsite to keep our production and manufacturing operations running smoothly. As a science-based company, we have followed the latest data-backed policies and advisories of the CDC and local governments. We are proud of our team in Indianapolis for staying safe and healthy as they achieved many milestones over the past year.

Our San Francisco team switched to working remotely in March 2020 and continued working from home through the first half of 2021 as the company more than doubled in size. During that period, the team continued to push the company forward and was able to successfully close our Series B fundraising. As a company, we strongly believe in the value of an in-person work model and a community that is built on real-life human connections. We also believe that nothing is more important than the health and safety of our employees, our partners, and our communities. This meant that any potential return to the office had to be rooted in a science-based approach — we wanted to ensure all of our stakeholders felt comfortable, safe, and supported.

San Francisco Team

Thus, once the San Francisco team was 100% vaccinated and the data suggested more broadly that vaccination efforts were vastly decreasing the spread of COVID-19, we began to scout for a new space. After looking at more than a dozen offices around the city, we finally found a new place to call ‘home’. The beautiful brick building, formerly known as “The Barrel House”, is located in the heart of downtown San Francisco and at one time served as a wine warehouse, prohibition speakeasy, and most recently a concert hall where musicians and talented artists would come together over good food, drinks, and music. The 6,400 ft2, three-story building offers plenty of space for the team to grow, be creative, and collaborate as we (re)adapt to an in-person model.

In celebration of the new office and return to in-person work, we hosted an office-warming party in mid-July with all San Francisco Ossies and their significant others. It was an extra-special event since for many it was the first opportunity to meet and get to know one another outside of Zoom. It was an amazing evening with lots of laughter, tasty hors d’oeuvres, and good company.

Later in July, we were lucky to host another dinner party as our Co-Founder and CEO, Kevin Caldwell, graciously invited the whole team to his humble home. This too was a wonderful opportunity for the San Francisco Ossies and their partners to bond over good food and drinks, and we even had Erik Woods, the Co-Founder & Chief Science Officer join us from Indianapolis.

Here at Ossium, we understand the importance of celebration and human connection. We look forward to many more opportunities to relish our achievements both big and small, and can’t wait to see how we continue to evolve as a company in the years to come.

Our resident competitors, Jay and Jane, battling it out on the air hockey table in the new office

LifeGift and Ossium Health Offer Hope with Bone Marrow Clinical Application

(Houston – July 26, 2021) – LifeGift, the organ procurement organization (OPO) facilitating organ and tissue donation in Southeast, West, and North Texas, and Ossium Health, a therapeutics company harnessing the power of stem cell science to improve treatment for patients with blood and immune diseases, are proud to announce a collaborative partnership. In 2017, LifeGift was the first OPO to work with Ossium and this ongoing partnership resulted in the successful banking of cells from their first clinically transplantable donor at the beginning of 2020. Cell banking systems are set up to assure a uniform population of cells is preserved, their integrity maintained, and a sufficient supply of material is accessible for the life of the product.

Bone marrow recovered by LifeGift and Ossium Health’s other OPO partners is processed for future use in transplant tolerance for individuals receiving organ and tissue transplants, bone marrow transplant for blood cancer patients, and regenerative medicine cell therapies for patients with a variety of inflammatory, autoimmune, and degenerative conditions.

Roughly 20,000 new U.S. patients seek a bone marrow transplant each year, but only 30 percent have a relative who provides a match. Of the remaining 14,000 patients, fewer than 5,000 receive transplants from unrelated donors. The living donor bone marrow registry, autologous bone marrow transplants, and umbilical cord blood banks have provided lifesaving solutions for thousands of patients with hematologic diseases. However, these methods still experience significant limitations driven by the scarcity of matched bone marrow.

LifeGift’s partnership with Ossium Health enables transformative clinical work such as Ossium’s recently approved clinical trial for intestinal transplants. Intestinal transplantation is rare because of historically high rejection rates. However, by infusing bone marrow cells from the same donor as the transplanted intestines, the immune system could see the donor organ as “self” so that long-term graft acceptance can be achieved without life-long immunosuppression.

“We are thrilled to have been the first collaborating partner with Ossium Health among all organ procurement organizations more than four years ago,” says Kevin Myer, president and CEO of LifeGift. “This partnership aligns perfectly with LifeGift’s focus on research and innovation to support our efforts to increase transplantation. We are relentless in our goal to save more lives through donation, and Ossium Health’s initiatives will drive clinical advancements allowing us to help more patients and advance important clinical research.”

“Ossium’s first of its kind bone marrow bank combined with bone marrow recovered by LifeGift establishes a powerful new platform for bringing cell therapies to patients across the globe,” says Ossium co-founder, president and CEO, Kevin Caldwell. “The future looks bright as the partnership moves forward to improve the health, vitality, and longevity of human beings through bioengineering.”

 

About LifeGift

LifeGift is a nonprofit, 501(c) 3 organization offering hope to individuals needing transplants in 109 Texas counties in Southeast, North and West Texas. LifeGift is a founding member of Donate Life Texas, the organization that manages the organ, eye and tissue donor registry. Please visit www.LifeGift.org.

About Ossium Health

Ossium Health is a therapeutics company that leverages its unique deceased donor bone marrow banking platform to develop stem cell therapies for patients with life-threatening blood and immune diseases. Founded in 2016, the company is run by its Co-Founder, President & CEO Kevin Caldwell, and its Co-Founder, EVP & Chief Science Officer Erik Woods. The company’s mission is “to deploy cellular therapeutics and bioengineering to produce lasting gains in the health, vitality, and longevity of human beings.” Ossium is a Public Benefit Corporation. Learn more about Ossium at www.ossiumhealth.com.

Scaling a World-Class Team in 2021

Here at Ossium, we know that hiring the right people is the most important part of building a great team, so we are very happy to announce that we have welcomed more than 35 new all-star employees over the past 6 months. We have more than doubled in size and now have almost 70 employees across our San Francisco and Indianapolis offices.

Specifically, we have rapidly scaled up the Production, Quality, Cell Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Regulatory departments. Additionally, we are building entirely new teams focused on Clinical Affairs, Business Development, and Legal. This period of growth will help us to massively increase our production efforts and get ready to kick off multiple clinical trials evaluating Ossium products over the next 6-12 months. This is an exciting time at Ossium where we will soon be able to measure the success of the company by the number of lives we save.

Ask an Ossium team member about what life here is like and they will tell you that we empower our employees to maintain the highest standards of excellence and are a force for good. If you are interested in joining our mission-driven team and want to improve the health, vitality, and longevity of human beings, check out our job postings – we are continuing to hire for roles in both San Francisco and Indianapolis!

Excellthera and Ossium Health Announce a Collaboration to Advance Their Technologies and Platforms to Improve Human Health

ExCellThera Inc., a clinical-stage cell and molecular medicine company delivering molecules and bioengineering solutions to expand stem and immune cells for therapeutic use, and Ossium Health, a therapeutics company harnessing the power of stem cell science to improve treatment for patients with blood and immune diseases, announced on April 21 a collaboration agreement to evaluate and advance opportunities to combine their capabilities to further the goal of improving human health.

The collaboration plans to evaluate and advance opportunities to employ adult stem cells from deceased donors from Ossium Health’s first-in-the-world bone marrow bank in conjunction with ExCellThera’s ECT-001 cell expansion and rejuvenation technology, comprised of the UM171 small molecule and an optimized culture system, to treat blood cancers, improve solid organ tolerization and repair damage from radiation.

Read the full Globe Newswire story here.

Ossium Health and Columbia University Irving Medical Center Initiate Phase 1 Study Using Bone Marrow Stem Cells to Minimize Immunosuppression Requirements in Intestinal Transplantation

Intestinal transplantation is lifesaving for patients with injury or disease of the intestines, but surgical success is hampered by high rejection rates resulting from an immune attack of the recipient against the donor, termed host-vs-graft reactivity. The high levels of immunosuppression historically required to prevent rejection drive elevated risk of infections and cancer.

Ossium and Columbia University’s Phase I study, lead by Principal Investigator Dr. Tomoaki Kato, aims to investigate the safety and feasibility of giving intestinal transplant patients CD34+ stem cells (the cells that make all the types of blood cells) obtained from their organ donor’s bone marrow. The goal is to develop a post-transplant treatment strategy that controls rejection while reducing the high risk of infection and cancer associated with traditional transplant immunosuppression requirements. Infusion of bone marrow cells from the same donor of the transplanted organ(s) could promote immune tolerance, in which the immune system regards the donor as “self” so that long-term graft acceptance is achieved without life-long immunosuppression.

More information about the trial, titled “Using T-Cell Alloreactivity and Chimerism to Guide Immunosuppression Minimization in Intestinal Transplantation” can be found at clinicaltrials.gov

About Ossium Health
Ossium Health is a therapeutics company that leverages its unique deceased donor bone marrow banking platform to develop stem cell therapies for patients with life-threatening blood and immune diseases. Founded in 2016, the company is run by its Co-Founder, President & CEO Kevin Caldwell, and its Co-Founder, EVP & Chief Science Officer Erik Woods. The company’s mission is “to deploy cellular therapeutics and bioengineering to produce lasting gains in the health, vitality, and longevity of human beings.” Ossium is a Public Benefit Corporation. Learn more about Ossium at www.ossiumhealth.com.

Contact
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3D Heals Podcast with Co-Founder, President & CEO, Kevin Caldwell

3DHEALS invites technological game-changers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, world-class clinicians, scientists, and other expert stakeholders to have deep-dive conversations on how to re-invent healthcare using 3D printing, bioprinting, and related emerging technologies.

Dr. Jenny Chen speaks with our Co-Founder, President, and CEO, Kevin Caldwell, about Kevin’s personal journey as an entrepreneur, how such a bone marrow/stem cell band from organ donors can help biofabrication and tissue engineering, and the bioethical concerns with cell therapy and tissue engineering. The video version of this interview can be found here