June 25, 2025 • 9 mins
This week on BioTech Nation, BioSTEM Technologies CEO Jason Matuszewski explains how donated placental tissue is being used to treat chronic wounds that just won’t heal, from diabetic ulcers to pressure sores. With millions affected and traditional care often falling short, BioSTEM’s approach offers a new way to support healing and reduce scarring.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Moira Gunn (00:11):
Wound care. You actually don't care much until
you or someone you love has awound, and it just won't heal.
Here is one treatment ofsurprising origin available
today. Jason Matuszewski is theCEO of BioSTEM Technologies.
Jason, welcome to the program.
Jason Matuszewski (00:33):
Thank you for having me.
Dr. Moira Gunn (00:34):
Now we're talking about wounds today. Real
wounds on the skin, bothhorrible to live with and
difficult to treat. Exampleswould be, diabetic foot ulcers,
leg ulcers, primarily in thelower leg due to low blood flow,
and pressure ulcers, which wewould also call bedsores. Now
(00:55):
all of these wounds can be longterm, they can be a huge
challenge to heal and they canactually adversely affect the
overall health of theindividual. Who gets these
wounds and how big can thewounds get?
Jason Matuszewski (01:11):
Yes. Typically, we see these wounds
affect a large portion ofMedicare beneficiaries. There's
about fifty million Medicarebeneficiaries today, and about
ten million of them are affectedby these types of wounds. Some
of these wounds could get as bigas a four inch by eight inch
rectangle. So pretty prettylarge, substantiated wounds.
Dr. Moira Gunn (01:34):
So there are all kinds of products out there with
respect to wound care. Andactually, there are a number of
products which start which startwith placental tissue. And
here's where BioStem operates.So let's start with why
placentas? And equallyinteresting, where do you get
the placentas?
Jason Matuszewski (01:55):
Placental tissue is very rich in a lot of
factors, nutrients, growthfactors, proteins, etcetera. And
so it's a great source materialto look at utilizing it for
these chronic wounds that arekinda stuck. Right? They're
stuck in a in a position wherethey can't get healed. So it's a
it's a really good startingpoint, for developing these
(02:17):
products.
We work with a multitude ofcollection agencies throughout
The United States to support andworking with prospective mothers
to, donate this type of tissuebased on a successful, cesarean
section birth. And so it we'rereally gracious of those donors
(02:37):
for, supporting this effort indeveloping these products for,
frankly, folks that are on theother side of, the coin,
typically older, men and womenthat have these types of chronic
wounds.
Dr. Moira Gunn (02:50):
Now how is it that a placenta from someone
else who has a different DNA andtheir baby has different DNA
again, How is it that that canbe used for other people?
Jason Matuszewski (03:05):
Also, you very unique property about
placental tissue is it'simmunoprivileged, meaning, you
know, it doesn't have a itdoesn't elicit immune response
when placed on a anotherrecipient. Think of it as, you
know, when a baby is in thewomb, it it it's not getting
attacked by the mother. Right?So there's an immune privilege
(03:26):
barrier there. A lot of thatbarrier is actually the
placental tissue material.
Dr. Moira Gunn (03:32):
Now you have three products. They're all a
brand name called Vendaje, whichis V E N D A J E, which is
Spanish for bandage, which isvery good. That makes sense. And
there are three of them. Whatare they and how do they differ?
Jason Matuszewski (03:51):
So our first product is Vendaje, which is the
amnion layer of the placenta,and it's used for more surface
based wounds. The product isvery thin. Think of it very
almost like a very thin saranwrap in a way. The second
product is Vendahe AC, which isa little bit thicker, includes
(04:16):
the amnion intermediate andchorion layer, so both sides,
the mother's side and the baby'sside. And it's used for more
complex wounds that are a littlebit deeper in nature and have a
little bit different handlingcharacteristics.
And the last product is VendaheOptic, which utilizes all of the
properties of Vendahe, but cutinto circles for use in the
(04:40):
optic space.
Dr. Moira Gunn (04:41):
So this I assume you mean skin on the eyes. How
is that different?
Jason Matuszewski (04:47):
So, you know, it's usually used for maybe
surface burns. So say somebodygets something in their eye, a
chemical or whatnot, and itcauses a burn on the surface of
the eye, this helps reduce theinflammation in their eye as
well as improves that scarring.Or they maybe got a cut on
(05:07):
surface of their eye, and ithelps reduce both inflammation
as well as the scarringattributes of having that cut.
Dr. Moira Gunn (05:15):
So what other prep do you have to do, and how
big are these sheets?
Jason Matuszewski (05:20):
Yeah. So specifically in diabetic foot
ulcers as well as venous legulcers, the provider usually has
to clean the wound bed. Thatentails cleaning that surface to
make sure that there's good,healthy tissue there. And then
subsequently, the material isplaced on the surface of that
(05:40):
wound. The sheets vary fromsizes of a half inch by half
inch to as big as four inches byeight inches.
Dr. Moira Gunn (05:48):
And if the wounds are bigger, do you just
use multiple sheets?
Jason Matuszewski (05:51):
That is correct.
Dr. Moira Gunn (05:52):
You just lay it in. Now, typically, this is done
on a weekly basis. I mean, youclean the wound, you lay in the
appropriate size sheet, but doyou have to remove what you put
in before? Do you have to putanything on top of it? How does
that work?
Jason Matuszewski (06:08):
No. I mean, one of the amazing attributes of
this tissue as well is that itengrafts or ingrained into the
patient's skin. So typicallywhen the provider goes to apply
another application, they'relooking to just clean that area
of possible dead skin beforethey look to apply another
(06:29):
application of the product.
Dr. Moira Gunn (06:31):
I'm guessing that the wounds are all a bit
different and the people aredifferent and their situations,
their living situations aredifferent. Are we getting better
at treating these wounds? Imean, do we know?
Jason Matuszewski (06:45):
I mean, I think I think, you know, we've
come a long way from usingmaggots to treat wounds to this,
you know, advanced technologylike using placental tissue. So
I'd I'd like to say we yes. Weare getting better at this. But,
you know, as as we can kindacontinue to develop these
products going forward, I thinkthere's some future technologies
that that can be used also. Ithink some of the material early
(07:08):
on when when utilizing this typeof product for wounds was very
similarly just air dried.
I think their goal was to makesure that the product didn't
have any sort of transmission ofdiseases or or potential
infection to a patient. And whatwe've done is developed a new
process to actually retain a lotof the natural properties of
(07:28):
that tissue. And what we noticeis that we have a significant
amount of collagen, almost threetimes the amount of surface
collagen, as well as an order ofmagnitude of specific growth
factors like VEGF. And there'sother elements within the
placental tissue that areretained through our process
north of 10 to 15 differentfactors that really support
(07:53):
healing outcomes with ourproduct. And we've evaluated
this technology in regards tohow quickly it heals.
Something that we've looked atis retrospective or real world
data and noticed that thesewounds are healing a lot quicker
with our technology. Andcurrently, we're actively
enrolling patients in severalrandomized controlled trials to
(08:13):
have a rigorous study todemonstrate this also.
Dr. Moira Gunn (08:17):
As you mentioned earlier, we have over ten
million people with thesewounds. How many treatments can
you get from a single placenta?
Jason Matuszewski (08:27):
Yeah. You can get several treatments from a
single placenta. And I think,you know, as we continue to
broaden the education about thegifted donation and really honor
those donors that are willing toto donate their tissue, we're
able to actually recover moreand more material. You know,
sadly, a lot of this materialultimately gets thrown away as
(08:47):
medical waste. So the more wecan forward educate at the OBGYN
level, the more material that weare able to collect and actually
use our technology to make more,these impactful pay products for
these patients.
Dr. Moira Gunn (09:01):
Well, Jason, thanks for joining me. I hope
you come back and see us again.
Jason Matuszewski (09:04):
All right. Thank you so much, Poira.
Dr. Moira Gunn (09:06):
Jason Matuzewski is the CEO of BioSTEM
Technologies. More informationis available on the web at
biostemtechnologies.com.
Wound care. You actually don't care much until
you or someone you love has awound, and it just won't heal.
Here is one treatment ofsurprising origin available
today. Jason Matuszewski is theCEO of BioSTEM Technologies.
Jason, welcome to the program.
Jason Matuszewski (00:33):
Thank you for having me.
Dr. Moira Gunn (00:34):
Now we're talking about wounds today. Real
wounds on the skin, bothhorrible to live with and
difficult to treat. Exampleswould be, diabetic foot ulcers,
leg ulcers, primarily in thelower leg due to low blood flow,
and pressure ulcers, which wewould also call bedsores. Now
(00:55):
all of these wounds can be longterm, they can be a huge
challenge to heal and they canactually adversely affect the
overall health of theindividual. Who gets these
wounds and how big can thewounds get?
Jason Matuszewski (01:11):
Yes. Typically, we see these wounds
affect a large portion ofMedicare beneficiaries. There's
about fifty million Medicarebeneficiaries today, and about
ten million of them are affectedby these types of wounds. Some
of these wounds could get as bigas a four inch by eight inch
rectangle. So pretty prettylarge, substantiated wounds.
Dr. Moira Gunn (01:34):
So there are all kinds of products out there with
respect to wound care. Andactually, there are a number of
products which start which startwith placental tissue. And
here's where BioStem operates.So let's start with why
placentas? And equallyinteresting, where do you get
the placentas?
Jason Matuszewski (01:55):
Placental tissue is very rich in a lot of
factors, nutrients, growthfactors, proteins, etcetera. And
so it's a great source materialto look at utilizing it for
these chronic wounds that arekinda stuck. Right? They're
stuck in a in a position wherethey can't get healed. So it's a
it's a really good startingpoint, for developing these
(02:17):
products.
We work with a multitude ofcollection agencies throughout
The United States to support andworking with prospective mothers
to, donate this type of tissuebased on a successful, cesarean
section birth. And so it we'rereally gracious of those donors
(02:37):
for, supporting this effort indeveloping these products for,
frankly, folks that are on theother side of, the coin,
typically older, men and womenthat have these types of chronic
wounds.
Dr. Moira Gunn (02:50):
Now how is it that a placenta from someone
else who has a different DNA andtheir baby has different DNA
again, How is it that that canbe used for other people?
Jason Matuszewski (03:05):
Also, you very unique property about
placental tissue is it'simmunoprivileged, meaning, you
know, it doesn't have a itdoesn't elicit immune response
when placed on a anotherrecipient. Think of it as, you
know, when a baby is in thewomb, it it it's not getting
attacked by the mother. Right?So there's an immune privilege
(03:26):
barrier there. A lot of thatbarrier is actually the
placental tissue material.
Dr. Moira Gunn (03:32):
Now you have three products. They're all a
brand name called Vendaje, whichis V E N D A J E, which is
Spanish for bandage, which isvery good. That makes sense. And
there are three of them. Whatare they and how do they differ?
Jason Matuszewski (03:51):
So our first product is Vendaje, which is the
amnion layer of the placenta,and it's used for more surface
based wounds. The product isvery thin. Think of it very
almost like a very thin saranwrap in a way. The second
product is Vendahe AC, which isa little bit thicker, includes
(04:16):
the amnion intermediate andchorion layer, so both sides,
the mother's side and the baby'sside. And it's used for more
complex wounds that are a littlebit deeper in nature and have a
little bit different handlingcharacteristics.
And the last product is VendaheOptic, which utilizes all of the
properties of Vendahe, but cutinto circles for use in the
(04:40):
optic space.
Dr. Moira Gunn (04:41):
So this I assume you mean skin on the eyes. How
is that different?
Jason Matuszewski (04:47):
So, you know, it's usually used for maybe
surface burns. So say somebodygets something in their eye, a
chemical or whatnot, and itcauses a burn on the surface of
the eye, this helps reduce theinflammation in their eye as
well as improves that scarring.Or they maybe got a cut on
(05:07):
surface of their eye, and ithelps reduce both inflammation
as well as the scarringattributes of having that cut.
Dr. Moira Gunn (05:15):
So what other prep do you have to do, and how
big are these sheets?
Jason Matuszewski (05:20):
Yeah. So specifically in diabetic foot
ulcers as well as venous legulcers, the provider usually has
to clean the wound bed. Thatentails cleaning that surface to
make sure that there's good,healthy tissue there. And then
subsequently, the material isplaced on the surface of that
(05:40):
wound. The sheets vary fromsizes of a half inch by half
inch to as big as four inches byeight inches.
Dr. Moira Gunn (05:48):
And if the wounds are bigger, do you just
use multiple sheets?
Jason Matuszewski (05:51):
That is correct.
Dr. Moira Gunn (05:52):
You just lay it in. Now, typically, this is done
on a weekly basis. I mean, youclean the wound, you lay in the
appropriate size sheet, but doyou have to remove what you put
in before? Do you have to putanything on top of it? How does
that work?
Jason Matuszewski (06:08):
No. I mean, one of the amazing attributes of
this tissue as well is that itengrafts or ingrained into the
patient's skin. So typicallywhen the provider goes to apply
another application, they'relooking to just clean that area
of possible dead skin beforethey look to apply another
(06:29):
application of the product.
Dr. Moira Gunn (06:31):
I'm guessing that the wounds are all a bit
different and the people aredifferent and their situations,
their living situations aredifferent. Are we getting better
at treating these wounds? Imean, do we know?
Jason Matuszewski (06:45):
I mean, I think I think, you know, we've
come a long way from usingmaggots to treat wounds to this,
you know, advanced technologylike using placental tissue. So
I'd I'd like to say we yes. Weare getting better at this. But,
you know, as as we can kindacontinue to develop these
products going forward, I thinkthere's some future technologies
that that can be used also. Ithink some of the material early
(07:08):
on when when utilizing this typeof product for wounds was very
similarly just air dried.
I think their goal was to makesure that the product didn't
have any sort of transmission ofdiseases or or potential
infection to a patient. And whatwe've done is developed a new
process to actually retain a lotof the natural properties of
(07:28):
that tissue. And what we noticeis that we have a significant
amount of collagen, almost threetimes the amount of surface
collagen, as well as an order ofmagnitude of specific growth
factors like VEGF. And there'sother elements within the
placental tissue that areretained through our process
north of 10 to 15 differentfactors that really support
(07:53):
healing outcomes with ourproduct. And we've evaluated
this technology in regards tohow quickly it heals.
Something that we've looked atis retrospective or real world
data and noticed that thesewounds are healing a lot quicker
with our technology. Andcurrently, we're actively
enrolling patients in severalrandomized controlled trials to
(08:13):
have a rigorous study todemonstrate this also.
Dr. Moira Gunn (08:17):
As you mentioned earlier, we have over ten
million people with thesewounds. How many treatments can
you get from a single placenta?
Jason Matuszewski (08:27):
Yeah. You can get several treatments from a
single placenta. And I think,you know, as we continue to
broaden the education about thegifted donation and really honor
those donors that are willing toto donate their tissue, we're
able to actually recover moreand more material. You know,
sadly, a lot of this materialultimately gets thrown away as
(08:47):
medical waste. So the more wecan forward educate at the OBGYN
level, the more material that weare able to collect and actually
use our technology to make more,these impactful pay products for
these patients.
Dr. Moira Gunn (09:01):
Well, Jason, thanks for joining me. I hope
you come back and see us again.
Jason Matuszewski (09:04):
All right. Thank you so much, Poira.
Dr. Moira Gunn (09:06):
Jason Matuzewski is the CEO of BioSTEM
Technologies. More informationis available on the web at
biostemtechnologies.com.
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