CHICAGO, Ill.—August 19, 2002— Organ Recovery Systems, a developer of technologies to improve the quality and quantity of transplantable organs, tissues and cells announced today that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded the company a two-year grant for more than $880,000 to study vitrification—an ice-free cryopreservation method—for articular cartilage transplants. The research will test whether vitrification can enable the storage and delivery of viable, functioning articular cartilage grafts, something that has not been possible with conventional cryopreservation methods because ice formation can damage cell viability. The improved storage and delivery of cartilage grafts will help people who suffer from damaged joints, a condition often caused by degenerative arthritis and sports injuries.

“While transplants of fresh cartilage have been proven to be effective, currently there is no way to store and deliver cartilage to needy recipients,” said Kelvin Brockbank, Ph.D., Organ Recovery Systems’ chief science officer and senior vice president. “This grant from the NIH will aid our company in the development of methods for cartilage cryopreservation and, ultimately, help more than 100,000 patients with damaged joints improve their quality of life.”

Organ Recovery Systems has already completed Phase I of the pre-clinical study and results to date encourage researchers that vitrification is a more effective and successful method of storing and delivering tissue than cryopreservation. From their research, Organ Recovery Systems found 80-85 percent cell viability in vitrified specimens while, in contrast, frozen cryopreserved specimens had less than 12 percent cell viability, which correlated with the distribution of ice within the tissue. The NIH grant will be used to fund a longer duration large animal study on vitrification, as well as to screen several new methods of vitrification with better ice control. Phase III research will extend these studies into human cartilage and tissue-engineered constructs.

About Organ Recovery Systems
Organ Recovery Systems is a privately held company developing technologies and services to improve the quality and quantity of transplantable organs, tissues and cells. The company is comprised of three business units: the Perfusion Services Group that helps leading transplant centers and organ procurement organizations (OPO) employ proprietary perfusion techniques for kidney evaluation and therapy that result in the successful transplant of traditional, expanded criteria and nonheartbeating donor kidneys; the Medical Technologies Group that develops perfusion-based devices to improve the recovery, assessment, storage and transport of organs for transplantation; and the Charleston Research Center that develops new technology for cell and tissue preservation as well as basic and applied research to support the company’s platform of organ therapy products. For more about Organ Recovery Systems visit http://www.organ-recovery.com.

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