BioTissue’s Sharing Miracles Partners with Dakota Lions Sight & Health to Expand Birth Tissue Donation

Expands Opportunity for Compassionate Mothers Across the  Northern Great Plains to Help Restore Sight and Health

MIAMI, May 31, 2023—To enable more mothers to donate birth tissue used in the restoration of sight and health, Sharing Miracles, has announced a partnership with Dakota Lions Sight & Health. The collaboration will bring the Dakota Lions birth tissue donation program to additional hospitals spanning more than 250,000 square miles across the Northern Great Plains, including North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota.

Together, Sharing Miracles and Dakota Lions Sight & Health offer mothers scheduled for C-section births at participating hospitals the opportunity to donate the placenta and umbilical cord for use in regenerative healing products. Grafts made from this birth tissue can help reduce inflammation and scarring in its use for a wide range of conditions, including keratitis, corneal scars, glaucoma, diabetic foot ulcers, osteoarthritis, and chronic and non-healing wounds. One tissue donor can help change the lives of approximately 75 people with these conditions.

“The placenta and umbilical cord are typically regarded as medical waste, but for so many people, it’s a second chance at life. At Sharing Miracles, we are proud to partner with Dakota Lions Sight & Health to increase donation opportunities and heal more lives together through donation and transplantation,” said Julie Caldro, Director of Tissue Procurement, Sharing Miracles. “We are grateful for the precious gifts from mothers who make our work possible and are committed to setting the standards that define next-generation care for the donors and patients we serve.”

Sharing Miracles is the group of BioTissue employees, consultants, and business partners dedicated to assuring donated birth tissue is performed with ethics, quality, and empathy to ensure proper stewardship of the gift. BioTissue is a pioneer in the application of cryopreserved human birth tissue products to support regenerative healing of ocular surface disease and disorders, chronic wounds, and musculoskeletal conditions. With more than three decades of experience working with organ, eye, and tissue banking providers and hospitals nationwide, the Sharing Miracles team assists Dakota Lions Sight & Health in facilitating and managing every aspect of the donor consent, screening, and donation processes.

“As our birth tissue donation program has grown, we sought a partner that could grow with us,” said Marcy Dimond, CEO of Dakota Lions Sight & Health. “We are excited to work with Sharing Miracles to expand our reach to additional hospitals throughout the region, offering the opportunity for birth tissue donation to more mothers, who in turn can help heal others. We like to say that these babies are born heroes to someone in need, and we couldn’t be more honored to be a part of that process.”

For more information about Sharing Miracles, visit www.sharingmiracles.com.

About Sharing Miracles

Sharing Miracles was established to provide a supportive program for mothers to donate birth tissue. BioTissue is a pioneer in regenerative medicine, creating life-changing allografts to help patients regenerate, restore, and recover from difficult medical conditions. For more information, visit www.sharingmiracles.com.

About BioTissue Holdings Inc.

BioTissue is an emerging biotechnology company and leader in harnessing the unique power of human birth tissue to support regenerative healing for ocular surface disease and in surgical, chronic wound, and musculoskeletal applications. BioTissue’s portfolio of cryopreserved amniotic membrane products use its proprietary CryoTek® cryopreservation technology, designed to retain the tissue’s structural and functional integrity. The company continues to break new ground with multiple investigational new drug clinical trials as the company pursues biologics license applications for products to treat patients’ unmet clinical needs. BioTissue is committed to empowering healthcare professionals with solutions to deliver optimal patient outcomes by fostering innovation through evidence-based science. Since its inception, clinicians have performed over 790,000 human implants with its products and published over 390 peer-reviewed publications supporting BioTissue’s platform technology. Learn more at biotissue.com.

About Dakota Lions Sight & Health

Dakota Lions Sight & Health is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the restoration of the gifts of sight and health, reaching for a vision to be a recognized, trusted, and compassionate organization, ensuring safe and quality tissue for transplant and research, and exemplifying the values of commitment, quality, stewardship, innovation, and communication. Headquartered in Sioux Falls, S.D. with remote offices in Rapid City, S.D., Bismarck, N.D., and Fargo, N.D., it serves the people and communities of South Dakota, North Dakota, northern Nebraska, and western Minnesota through eye and tissue donation and transplantation. Learn more at www.dakotasight.org.

Media Contact

Heather Kowalczyk, APR

McDougall Communications for BioTissue

[email protected] or (585) 434-2148