Octapharma product ‘could contribute to plasma safety’

Octapharma has developed a solution for the risk reduction of variant creutzfeld Jacob disease (vCJD) in fresh frozen blood plasma (FFP), it has emerged.

Following recommendations made by the UK’s government-run blood advisory group Safety of Blood, Tissue and Organs (SaBTO), the firm has produced OctaplasLG, a prion filtered, virus inactivated FFP.

This, Octapharma claims, filters out the prions responsible for vCJD and could contribute to safer plasma transfusions.

It is currently undergoing the final stages of regulatory assessment in a number of European countries, including the UK as the Department of Health discusses the recommendations of SaBTO.

In August 2008, Octapharma announced that it had signed an agreement to acquire 33 plasma centres from International BioResources.

At the tyime, the firm’s chairman Wolfgang Marguerre, said that the company must source half of the plasma it needs for its products from its own centres if it is to meet predicted client demand over the next decade.