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OneLegacy Eye Bank Enters Into Exclusive Agreement With Loma Linda Outpatient Surgery Center
[February 21, 2017]

OneLegacy Eye Bank Enters Into Exclusive Agreement With Loma Linda Outpatient Surgery Center


OneLegacy announced today that it has entered into an exclusive agreement to be the ocular tissue provider for Loma Linda Outpatient Surgery Center. OneLegacy is home to the only organ procurement organization and eye bank in Los Angeles that recovers, processes and distributes ocular tissue for transplant and research.

While OneLegacy currently recovers corneas from Loma Linda Medical Center, this agreement "means that we are able to assure that tissue recovered can be placed back into the community, helping local residents receive the gift of sight through a successful corneal transplant," said Prasad Garimella, chief operating officer of OneLegacy and executive director of the OneLegacy Eye Bank.

A corneal transplant is a surgical procedure that replaces a portion of an impaired cornea (brought on by disease, injury, infection or any other causes) with a healthy donor cornea. Since 1961, more than 1.5 million people worldwide have had their sight restored through this procedure, yet millions of people around the world struggle to live with crneal blindness.



"The donor cornea is an amazing gift that can be used to replace a cornea that has been injured or diseased. Tissue donation makes corneal blindness a treatable condition," said Garimella. "We have trained technicians who surgically retrieve the cornea and bring it to our eye bank where we carefully evaluate the tissue to ensure its optimal quality and then distribute it to a corneal surgeon who will transplant this tissue to his or her patient as soon as possible."

The OneLegacy Eye Bank is accredited by the Eye Bank Association of America and regulated the by the FDA. It obtains, medically evaluates, processes, and distributes ocular tissue donated by caring individuals for use in corneal transplantation, research and education. By early spring OneLegacy plans to open a new and expanded eye bank in downtown Los Angeles.


The Loma Linda Outpatient Surgery Center is part of Loma Linda University Health - the umbrella organization encompassing Loma Linda University's eight professional schools, Loma Linda University Medical Center's six hospitals, and more than 900 faculty physicians located across the Inland Empire in Southern California.

About OneLegacy

OneLegacy is the nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives through organ, eye and tissue donation in seven counties in Southern California: Los Angeles, Orange (News - Alert), Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and Kern. Serving more than 200 hospitals, 11 transplant centers, and a diverse population of nearly 20 million, OneLegacy is the largest organ, eye and tissue recovery organization in the world. For more information, call OneLegacy at 800-786-4077 or visit onelegacy.org


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