Tissue Donation

Impact

Donated cadaveric human tissue helps improve patients’ lives. These tissues are donated by people who have recently passed away and recovered by trained tissue bank technicians. Every year, tissue banks distribute over 3 million tissues resulting in almost 2 million transplant surgeries. Tissues like corneas (restore vision), heart valves (repair heart defects), veins (restore circulation), nerves (re-establish sensation), skin (heal burns and wounds), bone (repair fractures), and tendons (recreate joints).

Waste

Unfortunately, an alarmingly high rate of tissues are discarded after recovery. Many are discarded due to certain blood test results, medical history, or autopsy findings. Notably, a high percentage of tissues are unused as they do not meet appropriate suitability criteria. With the current instruments available, recovery technicians often make surgical errors that damage tissues. In order to meet the donors’ wishes and recover high quality tissue suitable for transplant, recovery technicians need better instruments.  

 

A Better Cornea

Our initial goal is to help tissue banks provide better corneas for surgeons and their patients. When recovering a cornea from a donor, accuracy is very important. In fact, a crucial part of the recovery involves making a circular incision around the center of the eye on the patient’s sclera (white portion of the eye). If this incision is misplaced by even a few millimeters the cornea is likely discarded.

We estimate that over 10% of the recovered corneas are discarded due to recovery technician error. With the current instruments available for cornea recoveries, technicians are unable to achieve the accuracy they need, resulting in misplaced incisions and over manipulation of the delicate cornea. Our patented OcuScope device provides the accuracy technicians need to recover the high quality corneas that surgeons and their patients deserve.

The Market

Our initial market is the 57 eye banks in the United States. In 2018, these US eye banks reported almost 135,000 corneas recovered from 68,000 donors, resulting in over 85,000 corneas distributed domestically and abroad. From 2010 to 2018 the US eye bank recovery rate grew at an annual rate of 4.56%. Domestic annual use grew at 2.34%, while international annual use of US corneas grew at 6.69%. The majority of US eye banks recover between 1,000 and 2,000 corneas every year. Two of the most productive eye banks recover closer to 10,000 corneas every year.

Internationally, Europe recovers approximately 35,000 corneas annually, while India recovers closer to 20,000 corneas annually. India offers great market potential, as it has the largest corneal blindness population, with an estimated need of 100,000 corneas every year.

With strong domestic cornea use and a growing international need, we anticipate that this market will continue to grow rapidly. Our research suggests that eye banks would be willing to purchase a device that significantly reduces their cornea discard rate and improves cornea quality. Our patented OcuScope device is ready to meet this opportunity and should be a part of every donor cornea recovery procedure in the US and abroad.

Eye Bank Financials

  • 130,000 corneas recovered annually
  • Average cost to recover and process one cornea donor = $2,300
  • Average recovery fee for one cornea = $2,000
  • Discarded cornea = $0 recovery fee, $2,300 cost
  • >10% corneas discarded due to recovery tech error
  • Example: Eye bank recovers 5,000 corneas annually
    • 5,000 corneas x 10% error rate = 500 corneas discarded
    • Cost to recover 500 corneas = $575,000
    • Revenue lost from discarded corneas due to recovery tech error  = $1 million