Industry News
Red Cross pairs with Prometic to develop prion removal technology
The American Red Cross (ARC; Washington, DC) and Prometic Life Sciences Inc. (Montreal) have entered into a joint venture aimed at the removal of harmful pathogens and certain viruses from collected blood. In an effort to preempt transmission of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), which is the human variant of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease), through the blood supply, prion removal is the primary focus of the venture.
Although there are no known instances of transmission of vCJD through the blood supply, there has been demonstration of transmissibility in organ donation and animal models. "The problem is that vCJD has an incubation period from 10 to possibly 30 years, and although it's slight, there is a possibility that vCJD could be passed through the blood supply," says Pierre Laurin, CEO of Prometic. "The Red Cross would rather be safe than sorry at this point."
In order to reduce the risk of someone who may be infected with vCJD donating blood, the Red Cross has implemented deferrals that prohibit blood donations from persons who have lived in Europe or visited European countries for longer than three months in the last five years. "The deferrals are a start, but that also reduces the blood supply and is not a foolproof method of ensuring safety," says Laurin. "This technology will make a relatively safe blood supply just that much safer."
Prometic's technology is used to isolate, purify, and remove proteins from various biologic source materials, including plasma, blood, transgenic fluids, and fermentation broth. In the process, a ligand selectively attaches to a protein, in this instance, an infected prion, which immobilizes the prion and allows for its removal by filtration.
Prometic is not the only company researching prion and pathogen removal. V.I. Technologies Inc. (Watertown, MA) is collaborating with Oxford University (Oxford, UK) to identify an aptamer that selectively binds to the pathogenic form of the prion.
"With Oxford, the goal is to develop a diagnostic test for the detection and removal of infectious prions," says Francesca Devellis, senior director of investor relations at V.I. Technologies. The company is also partnering with Pall Corp. (Ann Arbor, MI) to develop its Inactine red cell pathogen reduction technology, which inactivates known and possibly unknown pathogens that contaminate the blood supply. The Inactine compounds prevent viral replication of HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, parvovirus, and other viruses. Offering a similar process, Gambro BCT (Lakewood, CO), supplies a pathogen inactivation system that uses a chemical reaction between riboflavin and light to inactivate enucleated pathogens in platelets, plasma, and red blood cells.
"Currently, there are no prion removal systems on the market," says Laurin. "There are good reasons to warrant taking additional measures to provide a safer blood product." Prometic's technology is not expected to be on the market for two years and is currently in Phase II clinical trials.
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