NBR.com NFLD..11/08/04: A New Blood Test Is Underway
PAUL KANGAS: There has never been a substitute for blood until now. Some trauma centers throughout the U.S. are testing a blood substitute that could be on the market in a few years. As Diane Eastabrook reports, this medical breakthrough could change emergency medical care and save thousands of lives.
DIANE EASTABROOK, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: At an accident scene, seconds count. Victims can`t get blood transfusions until they reach hospitals. But soon patients will start getting a blood substitute on their way there. Northfield Laboratories in suburban Chicago is doing final clinical trials on a blood substitute called polyheme. Polyheme is derived from human blood that has been stripped of hemoglobin. The hemoglobin is then purified and chemically treated, so it can carry oxygen through the body just like blood. But unlike blood, polyheme doesn`t have to be typed or cross-matched and it has a much longer shelf life.
DR. STEVEN GOULD, CHAIRMAN & CEO, NORTHFIELD LABORATORIES: Our product provides for immediate replacement of lost oxygen- carrying capacity, so we have the potential to improve survival in critically injured patients and thereby transform the treatment of trauma in this country and throughout the world.
EASTABROOK: Loyola University medical center near Chicago, and 15 other trauma centers across the U.S. will be testing polyheme over the next year. Paramedics in the air and on the ground will administer the blood substitute to critically injured patients. Before Loyola University medical center began the polyheme study, it spent months training its own staff and local emergency medical service units on how to use the blood substitute. It also had to go out to area communities and educate the public about the product.
DR. RICHARD GAMELLI, LOYOLA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: For a lot of it, it was like it seemed obvious. Why wouldn`t we do this? And so that was almost surprising on my part. I thought maybe there would be a lot more skepticism about (INAUDIBLE), but it was important, I think, for them to want to get educated about what the problem was, and for them to understand what we are attempting to do.
EASTABROOK: Northfield Laboratories has been developing polyheme for nearly 20 years. During that time, close to a dozen other firms, including Baxter Laboratories, developed competing products but most abandoned them in earlier trials. Industry watchers are optimistic polyheme will prove successful in the current trial. But some say even with good results, getting FDA approval could be challenging.
BENJAMIN ANDREW, MEDICAL DEVICE ANALYST, WILLIAM BLAIR & COMPANY: There is nothing more fundamental to life than the blood that everybody has. We have a good product today. It`s safe. It`s well- characterized, we know a lot about it. Anything different than that that you are trying to use as a drug, you`d have to prove that it is every bit as good as what you currently have.
EASTABROOK: Northfield Labs says once approved polyheme will only be used to treat trauma. But the company says the product could eventually be used to treat heart attacks and strokes as well. Diane Eastabrook, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Mt. Prospect, Illinois.
Where'd they find THAT guy...
Hello, mr.analyst, wake up!!, the blood supply is NOT safe, for starters...it is also in short supply, and has a short shelf life.
Polyheme is, for the moment, being used in trauma situations....and succeding quite well, thank you.
Best,
Savant |
