Facts About Plasma

• It takes 130 plasma donations to manufacture enough therapy to keep one patient with primary immunodeficiency disease healthy for one year.
  
• One liter of plasma yields roughly four grams of immunoglobulin, which is used to manufacture therapies to treat people with immune deficiencies. The average infusion needed for a person with a primary immune deficiency is 35 grams.
  
• Albumin, one of the proteins found in plasma, is used to treat patients who have sustained severe burns, trauma, or during major surgery.
  
• Serum albumin and fibrin, two proteins found in plasma, have powerful anti-shock and blood clotting effects, and are credited with saving countless lives of soldiers wounded on the battlefield during World War II (WWII). They continue to help wounded soldiers fighting in the war in Iraq today.
  
• On average, a plasma donor gives .8 liter of plasma per visit.
  
• The largest expense to manufacture plasma protein therapies are direct manufacturing costs (which includes obtaining starting material) – roughly 70 percent of the total cost of the therapy.
  
• Plasma-derived therapies and therapies made using recombinant DNA technology are referred to collectively as plasma protein therapies.
  
• Plasma protein therapies are used to treat people with diseases like hemophilia, which affects approximately 16,500 people in the U.S.
  
• Annually in the U.S., approximately 18 million plasma donations are made in order to meet demand for plasma-derived therapies that treat patients with rare, genetic diseases.
  
• Each year in the U.S., roughly 11 million liters of source plasma are donated.
  
• 20 million liters of plasma are used worldwide every year to manufacture plasma protein therapies for patients with blood clotting disorders, immune deficiencies or autoimmune or neurological disorders.