One startup might have the solution to donor bone marrow in the bank

Every year, ~18k people ages 0-74 in the US discover they need a bone marrow transplant.

And while 30% of patients have a relative who is a match, 70% — ~12k people — need to use bone marrow from an unrelated donor.

That process can be especially hard for those who are racially or ethnically diverse, with Black and African American patients having just 29% odds of finding a full match.

Now, San Francisco-based startup Ossium Health is trying to fix the problem, per Wired.

• Rather than matching living donors, the company collects bone marrow from recently deceased organ donors.
• The bone marrow is extracted from the spinal column using Ossium’s proprietary method and cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen vapor. 

The company’s goal is to make a bone marrow bank, where patients in need of a time-sensitive transplant can get an “off-the-shelf” treatment. 

So far, Ossium has processed the bone marrow of thousands of donors, which it’s used to treat three cancer patients, with a fourth transplant scheduled soon. 

For now…

… most patients must rely on volunteer donors to find a match — or close to it. 

• Partially matched donors are becoming increasingly common thanks to a drug that reduces the risk of graft-versus-host disease.

• If a matched donor can’t be found through a relative or registry, some patients — mostly children — are given donated stem cells with a cord blood transplant, collected from the umbilical cord and placenta after a baby is born.

But, hopefully soon, some patients will have the option to source perfectly matched marrow directly from Ossium’s bank.

To test its process, the company partnered with the National Marrow Donor Program on an early-stage clinical trial for patients with blood cancer.

And it’s all in the name of a lofty goal: Ossium hopes to up the percentage of patients receiving transplants to 95% in the next 10 years.