Welcome to Blood Products

The blood banking and plasma products market contains mature markets as well as dynamic areas of high growth. There is a tremendous area of growth in markets that address the blood banking community's greatest fear vtainted blood as in some recombinant products in the plasma products segment.

Markets that can monitor or endeavour to correct the problems in blood banking are healthy and growing. Autotransfusion techniques have risen in some countries as a means of bypassing the need for homologous transfusions. New types of reagents are used constantly to monitor for disease. The latest research is being carried out to find a suitable blood testing reagent for detecting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), although little yet is known about the possibility of CJD infection via blood transfusions.

Most significant among the growth market segments is the plasma products segment, where great lengths have been made towards the synthetic production of plasma products. Factor VIII has been available for a number of years and has been gaining popularity, especially in recent years. Factor IX is forecast to be available in the not too distant future considering trials for the final product are being carried out in some countries. Research for a recombinant albumin is currently being carried out, although more physicians are employing the use of alternative volume expanders.

Not all segments have enjoyed rapid growth, however. Because of ongoing fears of the transmission of blood-borne pathogens namely, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis the use of donor blood transfusions has dropped. The markets for products directly affected by this, primarily blood collection bags, have stabilised or are shrinking slightly in most regions.