Gov. Braun tours world’s first bone marrow bank in Indianapolis

By GARRETT BERGQUIST
WISH-TV | wishtv.com

The co-founder behind a new bone marrow bank told News 8 on Tuesday Indiana could become the Silicon Valley of biosciences.

Ossium Health co-founders Kevin Caldwell and Erik Woods took Indiana Gov. Mike Braun on a tour of their facility on the northwest side. Founded in 2016, the company extracts bone marrow as well as bone material from the spinal columns of deceased organ donors.

Caldwell told News 8 that doctors have historically relied on live donors for marrow rather than deceased donors, the source of most donated organs. As a result, he said thousands of patients battling blood cancers such as leukemia die every year because a donor match cannot be found in time.

“We envisioned solving this problem by making a bone marrow transplant something that can be done on demand, on request, not something that a patient has to search for for months in hopes of finding a donor,” he said.

The Republican governor in March announced the state will make $1 billion in performance-based incentives available over the next 10 years for life sciences companies. He said Ossium Health and similar companies are exactly what he is looking for.

“This is kind of the prototypical thing I want to see in our state around this whole idea of life sciences,” he said. “We’ve got so much potential in this state. It’s the Crossroads of America that gives you all the logistic benefits. But with institutions like Purdue, IU, Notre Dame, Rose-Hulman, we need more STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degrees.”

Caldwell said he believes biosciences will be the main driver of innovation and change to daily life over the next 50 years in the same way microelectronics drove change over the past half-century. He said Indianapolis is well-positioned to be the epicenter of the biosciences revolution because it has a long history of advanced research and pharmaceutical manufacturing, plus it has several universities nearby with strong bioscience research programs, notably Purdue and Indiana universities. In addition, he said, biosciences products can be delivered by truck anywhere in the continental United States from Indianapolis within one or two days.

At Ossium, marrow is harvested and then frozen. Ossium staff can stockpile marrow and store it for years on end, thawing it out whenever a patient needs it. In addition, bone material can be harvested for use in bone grafts. Caldwell said this has allowed his company to build the world’s first bone marrow bank as well as, in partnership with local hospitals, carry out the first procedures associated with Ossium’s techniques.

Unlike traditional marrow donations, Ossium scientists said harvesting from whole spinal columns means they can keep leftover marrow in case a patient needs a follow-up infusion. They said Indianapolis’ location also minimizes the marrow bank’s risk from natural disasters.

Caldwell told News 8 his company collects marrow through the traditional organ donation network, so anyone interested in donating marrow through Ossium’s methods can do so by signing up to be an organ donor.

This story was originally published by WISH-TV at wishtv.com/news/politics/gov-braun-tours-worlds-first-bone-marrow-bank-in-indianapolis.