The Buffalo News from Buffalo, New York • 60

10 Refresh Saturday, November 16, 2019 a process called apheresis, in which blood is removed from the body, the plasma separated and kept, and the red cells, platelets and other material returned in a saline solution. Blood regeneration happens much more quickly this way. Federal law allows those who harvest plasma to pay for collections used to make medications. Blood provided for infusions must be donated. To be sure, all major blood components are vital.

Whole blood is paramount for trauma and critical care; platelets for treatment of cancer, chronic disease and traumatic injuries; and plasma for use in rabies vaccinations, and drugs to treat tetanus, autoimmune conditions and blood diseases. The American Red Cross collects about 13,000 units of whole blood daily of the supply and provides it to hospitals across the nation. That includes blood used by Catholic Health hospitals in Western New York. Only when those regional needs are met does the Red Cross move donations elsewhere. ConnectLife provides 30,000 units annually to Erie County Medical Center, and Kaleida Health, Niagara Falls Memorial, Olean General and Wyoming County Community hospitals.

Those hospitals are supplemented by other community blood banks as needed. job is to provide a safe, secure, low-cost blood product to our Farrell said. Other important uses Western New York also has played a critical role for more than three decades when it comes to collecting plasma to treat mothers with Rh negative blood types carrying babies with Rh positive blood types. Kedplasma Somerset Labs in Amherst has collected plasma from those who are Rh negative about of the population to make RhoGAM, the and still leading vaccine to prevent stillbirths from a related condition called hemolytic disease. Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center runs its own donor center to collect platelets for patients with leukemia, receiving chemotherapy or undergoing bone marrow transplants, and whole blood to boost the strength of patients who are weak or anemic.

CSL Plasma is open to those of any blood type who wish to provide their plasma. The company, headquartered in Boca Raton, operates more than 230 plasma collection centers in U.S., Europe and China. It employs more than 12,000 workers. It is a subsidiary of CSL Behring, a global biotherapeutics based in Melbourne, Australia. Donations in the U.S.

are steered to a plasma protein biotherapies company under the same corporate umbrella in King of Prussia, for the medication manufacturing process. Economic power The regional arrival of CSL set up a dynamic that has grown more common in the U.S. since 2005, when there were 300 plasma procurement sites across the country. That number has since doubled to meet demand, according to the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association. Such growth can generate lots of green.

Market analysts estimate related therapeutic sales in the U.S. will climb from $5 billion in 2000 to more than $30 billion by 2024. plasma can be a medical necessity, companies that collect it tend to wield pricing H. Luke Shaefer, associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, wrote last year in The Atlantic.

days, a liter of plasma that costs a company about $150 to collect and process could sell for in the neighborhood of $500 a substantial markup in any Plasma, a yellow liquid, contains proteins critical for clotting and immunity. A transfusion of it can help burn, trauma and clotting factor patients. Medications made with it can help those with hemophilia, respiratory and autoimmune diseases, and who have undergone organ transplants. Making those drugs can pose great challenges. CSL estimates 130 plasma units are needed to treat one patient with Primary Immune Those age 16 with parental consent as well as almost anyone 17 and older, and in good health, can donate whole blood.

They must weigh 110 pounds or more to do so, or at least 120 pounds to donate platelets. have donors in their said Corvaia, of the Red Cross. been giving all their life and look forward to donating CSL Plasma sets different parameters. Those who provide plasma must be 18 to 64 and in good health, said Carol Palaszewski, assistant manager at the North Buffalo center. Anyone who has donated whole blood has to wait at least 56 days to provide plasma, she said.

encourage our donors to have a lot of preferably water, and protein prior to she said. The process to provide blood or its components for the time is pretty standard. Patients answer a health questionnaire. A health professional then takes vital signs and asks more questions designed to protect the safety of the blood provider and safeguard the blood supply. Blood is then drawn.

Nurses handle the preparations and phlebotomists the procurement process at CSL, where the visit tends to last a little over two hours and subsequent visits about 80 minutes, said North Buffalo manager Nick Liberati. That contrasts with whole blood extraction, which generally takes an hour or less, though platelet extraction takes about two hours using a process similar to plasma collection. CSL Plasma touts in its rack cards which have become common across the region, including on college campuses that has its of up to $300 or $400 a month when incentives are included. To be sure, however, the staff, Downer and Katelyn Rychnowski are among those who also feel good about helping others as part of CSL efforts. had a family friend who had leukemia so I always donated blood and then a girlfriend started going to CSL and referred said Rychnowski, 23, of Amherst, a sophomore in the UB respiratory therapy program who started donating plasma earlier this year.

She found the North Buffalo center while doing an online search for blood donation. Rychnowski felt good about providing plasma for lifesaving and life-preserving medications, as well as the chance to use her payments for student loan debt and a cruise next year with her boyfriend. Over time, she learned that her veins hold up so well for the slightly larger needle used to collect plasma, so she stopped. CSL since helped her in another way, giving her a job as a phlebotomist in its new Cheektowaga an opportunity that works better in her schedule and pays more than her previous part-time post as a nursing assistant. She said also returned to donating blood.

Plasma sales could hit $30 billion Robert News Carol Palaszewski is the assistant manager of the CSL Plasma center, the of its kind locally, at 1845 Elmwood Ave. CONTINUED PLASMA from Page 9.