Cerus Announces Health Canada Approval of the INTERCEPT Blood System for Platelets
April 25 2018 - 8:30AM
Business Wire
Cerus Corporation (Nasdaq: CERS) announced today that Health
Canada has approved the commercialization of INTERCEPT Blood System
for platelets. The INTERCEPT Blood System for platelets is intended
for the ex vivo treatment and storage of platelet components. The
system is used to inactivate a broad range of pathogens, including
viruses, bacteria, and protozoan parasites, thus reducing the risk
of transfusion-transmitted infections (TTI). Contaminating donor
leukocytes are also inactivated by the INTERCEPT treatment,
reducing the risk of transfusion-associated graft versus host
disease (TA-GVHD). Health Canada’s approval of INTERCEPT Blood
System for platelets is the Company’s second pathogen inactivated
system to be approved in Canada following the approval of INTERCEPT
Plasma in May 2016.
“The approval marks another important step in our mission to
establish INTERCEPT as the global standard of care for transfused
blood components,” said Carol Moore, senior vice president of
regulatory affairs and quality at Cerus. “INTERCEPT provides an
important, proactive safety measure to reduce the risk of
transfusion transmitted infections from known and emerging
pathogens.”
“The approval provides blood centers the flexibility to pathogen
inactivate platelets derived from whole blood or apheresis
collections, and stored in either platelet additive solution or
plasma. In addition, Canadian blood centers will be able to create
larger platelet pools from whole blood collections and use our
double dose INTERCEPT kits to yield two therapeutic platelet doses
to realize improved operational efficiencies and economics,”
continued Moore.
Approximately 150,000 units of platelets are shipped annually in
Canada.
The Canadian Blood System is comprised primarily of two
provincially funded agencies, Canadian Blood Services and
Héma-Québec. The organizations were formed in 1998 as a result of
the Krever Commission’s recommendation to create a new national
blood authority. Canadian Blood Services operates in nine provinces
and all three territories, schedules more than 18,000 collection
events annually through permanent and mobile collection sites, and
operates two blood testing facilities and nine manufacturing sites.
Héma-Québec operates in Quebec with two blood collection sites.
The expert panel at the 2007 Canadian Consensus Conference on
Pathogen Inactivation of blood components recommended universal
implementation of pathogen inactivation upon the technology’s
availability.
ABOUT CERUS
Cerus Corporation is a biomedical products company focused in
the field of blood transfusion safety. The INTERCEPT Blood System
is designed to reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted
infections by inactivating a broad range of pathogens such as
viruses, bacteria and parasites that may be present in donated
blood. The nucleic acid targeting mechanism of action of the
INTERCEPT treatment is designed to inactivate established
transfusion threats, such as hepatitis B and C, HIV, West Nile
virus and bacteria, as well as emerging pathogens such as
chikungunya, malaria and dengue. Cerus currently markets and sells
the INTERCEPT Blood System for both platelets and plasma in the
United States, Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the
Middle East and selected countries in other regions around the
world. The INTERCEPT Red Blood Cell system is in clinical
development. See http://www.cerus.com for information about
Cerus.
INTERCEPT and the INTERCEPT Blood System are trademarks of Cerus
Corporation.
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Cerus CorporationTim Lee, 925-288-6137Investor Relations
Director
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