The mission of BMI OrganBank Co-Founder and CEO Carrie DiMarzio is to help resolve a key issue of organ transplantation providing transplant teams with more time and information to decide if a donated organ can be successfully transplanted.
BMI OrganBank is developing the OrganBank Kidney (OBK) System, a portable, automated, room-temperature organ preservation system that preserves kidneys ‘out of the body’ and continuously preserves any kidney and provides real-time organ viability data.
The company hopes the system, which preserves and assesses the organ simultaneously, will help transplant teams make better decisions, and allow more viable donated kidneys to reach patients.
Creating a Company Based on an Unmet Medical Need
The idea behind the formation of BMI OrganBank was driven by a combination of both a desire for improvement in the technology of organ preservation and a realization of the potential of the underlying technology.
She noted that she saw the potential in the technology and how much need there was for a transplant system to be better suited to organ preservation.” “When we combined the scientific, clinical and engineering skills in the right mix with us, we could help fill that void.”
To make this opportunity a clinical platform, there was a need for inter-disciplinary collaboration between scientific, clinical and engineering groups. BMI OrganBank has collaborated with partners and co-inventors in the transplant community including top transplant surgeons and Duke’s co-director of the Ex Vivo Organ Lab.
DiMarzio said it was a no-brainer when he started to realize what the technology would allow to be done to create the company. “This is a problem that would take years to work out.”
This is the goal that drives the company to move forward in creating a platform for organ preservation that tackles real-world needs between organ recovery and transplant.
A new approach is needed for kidney preservation.
Transplantation Network (OPTN), more than 90,000 people in the United States are waiting for a kidney transplant, while thousands of recovered kidneys go unused each year.
The two primary methods of kidney preservation are static cold storage and hypothermic machine perfusion. Both use low temperatures to slow metabolic activity and help preserve organs outside the body. However, these approaches have limitations related to preservation duration, transportation logistics, and the availability of data to assess organ viability. As medical technology companies work to address these challenges, medical device venture capital firms may find opportunities to support innovations that aim to improve organ preservation and expand access to transplantation.
This means that transplant teams may have to make decisions in the heat of the moment when insufficient information is available to make a proper assessment of a recovered kidney.
As the window of opportunity closes, there is a lack of information for transplant teams, and they may end up rejecting an organ they are not able to evaluate with the necessary certainty,” DiMarzio said.
BMI OrganBank is in development of an alternative that allows kidneys to be metabolically active at room temperature and continuously informs information about the organ during the preservation process.
OrganBank Kidney System details and more information.
The OrganBank Kidney System is designed to preserve, monitor and transport organs in an integrated system. Instead of trying to reduce the physiological activity with cold temperatures, the platform generates a proprietary pulse generator to induce a physiological heartbeat-like motion intended to support physiological activity.
The following are some of the main components of the system:
- Room-temperature preservation: Preservation in the kidney outside the body, with the intent of keeping the metabolic activity of the kidney at room temperature.
- Continuous perfusion: Coordinates the continuous supply of nutrients, electrolytes and oxygen to the organ cells via a proprietary pulse generator.
- Blood-free operation: The platform is portable and can be operated without using blood, which could decrease the logistical complexity and costs.
- End to end preservation: Kidney is kept in the same controlled environment from procurement to transportation, aim is to limit ischemic damage and facilitate kidney transplant logistics.
Organ viability data: Regular data collection is designed to provide more information for transplant teams when evaluating a kidney prior to transplant.
These features are intended to work together to offer a more comprehensive strategy for kidney preservation that can help transplant teams to be more flexible in the assessment and transport of donated kidneys.
DiMarzio said what makes BMI OrganBank unique is the way we turned a new way of preservation into a new perfusion platform that’s fully automated to provide scalable, best-in-class preservation from the point of recovery to transplantation.
Avoiding a second development phase of the project requires the submission of preclinical results and the validation of the technology.
BMI OrganBank has performed thorough preclinical autotransplant research to assess its preservation methodology.
The company reported no delayed graft function in the group of kidneys preserved with OrganBank in a head-to-head study in pigs, versus 40% in the group preserved with hypothermic machine perfusion.
The company has said that the platform preserves kidneys for up to 72 hours with stable perfusion parameters, and that these parameters are further validated by additional studies.
The results of this research serve as valuable groundwork for future research. Preliminary findings, however, do not prove the technology effective in humans, and further research will be required to test the technology in the clinical environment.
The journey to clinical studies is a time of numerous key milestones.
BMI OrganBank has successfully passed through a number of milestones in its development and recognition journey, culminating in the readiness to undertake the next phase of its clinical program.
December 2025: Accepted for Priority Review.
Preclinical development: Conducted a Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) animal study with its production equivalent OrganBank Kidney and proprietary DEVOL perfusate solution.
Industry recognition: Winner of the 2026 Luis Villalobos Award in Life Sciences by the Angel Capital Association.
Leadership recognition: DiMarzio was chosen as a 2026 Aspen Ideas: Health Fellow.
Clinical development: Does a human clinical study seem likely to follow in 2027 assuming FDA approval?
The company is also closing an oversubscribed $6 million seed round, and has started conversations regarding a proposed Series A round.
The financing is aimed at supporting the company’s further development, as it progresses towards a clinical evaluation stage and subsequent commercialization planning.
Beyond Kidney Preservation
While BMI OrganBank’s early work is on the OrganBank Kidney System, the company is interested in the potential applications of its preservation platform for other organs and tissues.
It focuses on prioritizing its development in the following areas:
- Changes in the platform for the preservation of abdominal organs: liver, pancreas, and intestine.
- Limb preservation: Developing research platforms for preserving limbs.
Whole-eye preservation: Researching other applications of whole eye preservation.
A wider application to other transplantation and biomedical research areas could provide opportunities to the company’s preservation approach. Every individual application will need to be validated for the particular clinical or research application, however.
Getting ready for the Next Stage of Growth
BMI OrganBank is working towards human clinical evaluation of the OrganBank Kidney System and fostering relationships with investors and strategic partners to help develop the company.
DiMarzio will be attending LSI USA 2027 from March 15-19 in Dana Point, California to present. The event will represent a platform to communicate to the wider medical technology investment and innovation community on the company’s progress.
In my mind, the most important thing I need to do at LSI is reach out to investors and strategic partners who appreciate the work we’re doing to bring new medical technologies to the marketplace and are willing to help us continue to grow.
The next step for BMI OrganBank is to progress its kidney preservation platform towards clinical trials, as well as to look at financial readiness for future funding and the potential for using its technology to solve other organ preservation problems.
The company concentrates on the window from organ recovery to transplant to give transplant teams more time and information to consider donated kidneys and more healthy hearts to reach patients in need.
