Entegrion, a Research Triangle Park-based company started with the help of a $150,000 Small Business Research loan from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, has been awarded a $118,000 contract with the Department of the Navy to develop a dried plasma packaging system for treating severely wounded people under harsh conditions.
Plasma is currently supplied as a frozen product which must be maintained at or below minus-20 degrees Celsius during storage, and requires shipping with dry ice. In the field, combat medics have a limited supply of plasma, and it usually must be kept at field hospitals. Thawed plasma is kept on hand for immediate use, but it only has a shelf life of about two weeks.
Entegrion, a spin-out based on technology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and East Carolina University, is to develop the prototype within six months, though the company expects this initial contract to result in a multi-million-dollar expansion.
The plasma packaging will involve a single integrated unit with two chambers separated by a breakable wall. One chamber will contain dried plasma powder and the other will hold saline, a reconstitution fluid. The packaging could extend the produc's shelf life and ease administration of the reconstituted intravenous plasma to restore severely wounded patients' blood-clotting ability.
Privately held Entegrion was founded five years ago, and closed on $3.7 million in venture financing a year ago.