Ossium Health to Report New Clinical Evidence Supporting Organ Donor Bone Marrow Platform at ASH 2025
a bioengineering company that pioneered the world’s first on-demand bank of organ donor–derived bone marrow, announced it will present new clinical data at the 66th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition, taking place December 6–9, 2025, in Orlando, Florida. The presentation will feature early clinical outcomes from patients with hematologic malignancies treated using Ossium’s novel deceased-donor-derived bone marrow platform—an approach that is poised to transform the field of hematopoietic cell transplantation.
The data to be presented at ASH 2025 come from four patients diagnosed with aggressive blood cancers who received hematopoietic stem cell transplants using bone marrow harvested from the vertebral bodies of deceased organ donors. According to the company, all four patients achieved rapid and robust engraftment, with timely neutrophil recovery, platelet recovery, and complete donor chimerism. Each of these benchmarks is considered critical for transplant success and long-term disease control.
Equally noteworthy, all observed cases of acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD)—a potentially severe and life-threatening complication of stem cell transplantation—were successfully treated using standard steroid therapy, and no chronic GVHD was reported in any of the patients. By Day 180 following transplant, all evaluable patients remained alive and relapse-free, highlighting both the safety and therapeutic potential of this emerging graft source.
“These early clinical outcomes suggest that deceased-donor-derived bone marrow can function as a highly effective graft source while also offering meaningful advantages in GVHD control and relapse prevention,” the company stated. “Together, these findings reinforce the promise of this approach for patients who urgently need access to life-saving transplants but lack a suitable living donor.”
Transforming Access to Life-Saving Transplants
Hematopoietic cell transplantation remains one of the most powerful curative therapies for patients with leukemia, lymphoma, and other blood cancers. However, the success of these procedures is heavily dependent on the availability of well-matched donors. Despite decades of progress in donor registries and cord blood banking, thousands of patients each year are unable to proceed with transplantation due to the lack of a timely or suitably matched donor.
Ossium Health’s technology was created to address this long-standing bottleneck. By harvesting large quantities of bone marrow from deceased organ donors—an abundant but previously untapped resource—the company has built a scalable, on-demand supply of high-quality hematopoietic stem cells. Each donor can yield enough marrow to treat dozens of patients, dramatically expanding access while reducing wait times that can be fatal for patients with fast-progressing cancers.
Unlike traditional stem cell sources such as peripheral blood stem cells, volunteer bone marrow donors, or cord blood, organ donor–derived bone marrow can be collected in significant quantities under tightly controlled conditions. This allows for advanced processing, cryopreservation, and distribution through a centralized banking model, similar to that used for organ transplantation.
The clinical data being shared at ASH 2025 provide some of the earliest real-world validation of this concept in patients with active hematologic malignancies.
Key Clinical Outcomes Highlighted
The company’s flagship abstract includes detailed results from four transplant recipients. All patients demonstrated:
- Rapid neutrophil engraftment, indicating fast restoration of the immune system
- Successful platelet recovery, reducing bleeding risk
- Full donor chimerism, showing that donor stem cells fully replaced the patient’s diseased marrow
- Manageable acute GVHD, controlled with steroids
- No reported chronic GVHD
- 100% overall survival and relapse-free status at Day 180 among evaluable patients
Taken together, these outcomes suggest that deceased-donor-derived bone marrow not only supports strong engraftment but may also offer an improved balance between graft-versus-leukemia effects and GVHD risk—one of the most difficult challenges in transplant medicine.
The ability to achieve durable donor chimerism with manageable GVHD is critical, as GVHD remains one of the leading causes of long-term morbidity and mortality following allogeneic stem cell transplantation. If these early results are confirmed in larger studies, Ossium’s platform could significantly shift the risk-benefit profile of transplantation for many patients.
Advancing a New Paradigm in Bone Marrow Banking
Ossium Health was founded with the vision of applying modern bioengineering, cryopreservation, and cell-processing technologies to one of medicine’s oldest challenges: the scarcity of transplantable cells. The company’s proprietary techniques allow bone marrow to be harvested from vertebral bodies recovered during organ donation procedures, processed for safety and potency, and stored for future use.
This novel approach enables hospitals and transplant centers to access bone marrow on demand, without requiring patients to wait for a matching living donor or for a scheduled stem cell collection from a volunteer. For patients with rapidly advancing cancers, this time advantage can make the difference between receiving curative treatment and losing eligibility due to disease progression.
In addition to improving availability, deceased-donor-derived bone marrow offers biological benefits. These grafts contain a rich and diverse population of stem and immune cells that may contribute to enhanced immune reconstitution and anti-tumor activity after transplant.
Commitment to the Hematology Community
Ossium’s presence at ASH 2025 reflects the company’s broader mission to collaborate closely with clinicians, researchers, and transplant centers to accelerate innovation in hematologic care.
The hematology community has long recognized the urgent need for new graft sources that can close the donor gap while maintaining safety and efficacy,” said Kevin Caldwell, CEO, Co-Founder, and President of Ossium Health. “We’re excited to share our latest clinical insights at ASH, and we believe these results demonstrate the transformative potential of organ donor bone marrow to improve patient outcomes and redefine what’s possible in transplantation.”
Caldwell added that engaging directly with hematologists, transplant physicians, and clinical researchers is a central part of Ossium’s strategy. “ASH is the global gathering place for leaders in blood disorders and cancer,” he said. “By participating in this meeting, we can exchange ideas, gather valuable feedback, and build partnerships that accelerate clinical adoption.”
Booth Presence and Industry Engagement
In addition to its scientific presentation, Ossium Health will host a booth at ASH 2025, located at Booth 112. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn more about the company’s technology platform, current clinical programs, and future research directions. Ossium personnel will be available to discuss how deceased-donor-derived bone marrow is being integrated into clinical practice and how transplant centers can participate in ongoing and future studies.
The exhibit will also highlight the company’s broader pipeline, which includes multiple clinical-stage programs exploring organ donor–derived bone marrow across a range of malignant and non-malignant blood disorders. These include applications in acute leukemias, lymphomas, and inherited hematologic diseases.
Addressing GVHD and Relapse Two of Transplant’s Greatest Challenges
One of the most compelling aspects of Ossium’s early clinical data is the simultaneous control of both GVHD and relapsetwo outcomes that are often in tension with one another. Strong graft-versus-tumor effects typically increase the risk of GVHD, while aggressive GVHD prophylaxis can raise relapse rates. Achieving a balance between these competing risks is one of the central goals of transplant medicine.
The absence of chronic GVHD among the initial four patients is particularly encouraging, as chronic GVHD can cause lifelong complications affecting the skin, lungs, liver, eyes, and gastrointestinal system, severely impairing quality of life. By demonstrating durable disease control without chronic GVHD, Ossium’s approach may open new possibilities for survivorship outcomes that extend well beyond initial remission.
These results suggest that organ donor bone marrow could help tilt the balance toward better long-term survival with fewer debilitating complications,” the company noted.
While the initial data set is small, Ossium Health is already advancing broader clinical investigations to validate these findings in larger patient populations. The company plans to continue collaborating with leading transplant centers to expand enrollment and generate the evidence needed for regulatory approval and widespread adoption.
If future studies confirm the safety, scalability, and clinical benefits observed to date, deceased-donor-derived bone marrow could become a new standard graft source—complementing or, in some cases, replacing traditional donor pathways.
By unlocking an abundant and previously inaccessible resource, Ossium Health aims to ensure that every patient who needs a hematopoietic stem cell transplant can receive one—without delay and without the limitations imposed by donor scarcity.
As the hematology world gathers in Orlando for ASH 2025, Ossium’s data presentation represents not only a clinical milestone for the company, but also a potentially historic shift for the field of bone marrow transplantation.
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)
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