CHICAGO, Ill. and MIAMI, Fla.—August 26, 2002—Organ Recovery Systems, a developer of technologies to improve the quality and quantity of transplantable organs, tissues and cells, announced that Louise M. Jacobbi, a scientific advisor to the company, presented the study Novel Machine Preservation Protocol Improves Outcome of Expanded Criteria Kidneys today at the XIX International Congress of the Transplantation Society in Miami.

The study, which Jacobbi co-authored with Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the special kidney transplant programs at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Christopher J. Sonnenday of The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and David Kravitz, CEO of Organ Recovery Systems, finds that a proprietary method and protocol developed by Organ Recovery Systems employing hypothermic machine perfusion—the process of passing chemical solutions through organs—may increase the number of transplantable kidneys by rescuing organs otherwise thought to be unsuitable for transplant. The study also indicated that this new protocol could increase the chance of successful transplantation by providing a significantly longer time period for organs to remain viable outside of the body prior to transplantation and by helping to reduce delayed graft function in expanded criteria kidneys. The findings will be published in the winter edition of Transplantation, the official medical journal of the Transplantation Society.

“This study demonstrates several important findings including that machine perfusion of kidneys prior to transplantation appears to delay the incidence of primary graft nonfunction and delayed graft function,” said Louise Jacobbi, a scientific advisor to Organ Recovery Systems and veteran researcher in the field of transplantation. “As a result, kidney transplant recipients and healthcare payors benefit by lowering the requirement for post transplant dialysis, shortening the patient’s length of hospital stay and lowering the risk of potential complications that may be triggered by delayed graft function in the acute phase post-transplant.”

The study included 982 kidneys, the majority of which had been turned down by at least three transplant centers and would likely have been discarded because they had expanded criteria or were from nonheartbeating donors (NHBD). Expanded criteria and NHBD kidneys are normally rejected for donation due to the age or health status of the donor among other criteria.

The study kidneys were treated using a hypothermic solution pursuant to a proprietary treatment and assessment protocol. From the 982 kidneys accepted in the study, 398 were transplanted between January 1998 and October 2001. Results were analyzed and compared with national kidney outcome data using the same criteria as the study group of expanded criteria kidneys. The study found that the expanded criteria kidneys appear to have a graft survival rate comparable to traditional donor kidneys.

“The results of this study are very encouraging and mark a major advancement in the fight against the critical shortage of transplantable organs,” said David Kravitz, CEO of Organ Recovery Systems, Inc. “If this approach to organ preservation continues to prove effective I can envision nationwide adoption by the transplant community which could potentially enable several thousand more kidneys becoming available for transplantation.”

Of all the transplantable organs, kidneys are in greatest demand. While approximately 12,000 kidney transplants are performed each year in the United States, there are more than 50,000 prospective kidney transplant patients on organ waiting lists according to the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS). According to the U.S. Renal Data System, nearly 200,000 patients are being treated for end stage renal disease and depend on routine dialysis to stay alive. In addition, the U.S. Renal Data System projects that the current number of patients waiting for a kidney transplant will nearly double by 2010. Increasing the number of transplantable organs would provide many of these patients with the opportunity for a life-saving transplant and help limit the widening gap between patient demand and donor supply.

About Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center
Founded in 1773, the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center is one of the oldest continuously operating health care systems on the East Coast. A member of the Johns Hopkins Health System, Hopkins Bayview is a community teaching hospital with 704 beds and a broad range of services, including one of Maryland's most comprehensive neonatal intensive care units, a sleep disorders center, an area-wide trauma center, the state's only regional burn center, and a geriatrics center that enjoys a national reputation in the field of aging. For more information, please visit www.jhbmc.jhu.edu.

About the University of Maryland Medical System
The University of Maryland Medical System is a regional health care delivery system that includes an academic medical center (the University of Maryland Medical Center in downtown Baltimore) as well as five community and specialty hospitals and outpatient sites throughout Baltimore and central Maryland. For more information, please visit www.umm.edu.

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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