British agency recommends ProMetic’s blood filter

ProMetic Life Sciences Inc. (TSX:PLI) and MacoPharma won the nod of an advisory committee on the safety of blood, tissues and organs, an independent committee that advises Britain’s Department of Health, for adoption of the P-Capt prion reduction filter to pre-treat red blood cells destined for children born since 1996.

The filter, which cleans blood prior to use, removes the prion responsible for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human version of mad cow disease.

The committee’s recommendation is subject to completion of the PRISM study, a multi-centre clinical trial begun in 2007 to evaluate the safety of P-Capt filtered red cells, ProMetic said in a statement.  The 540-patient study is scheduled to conclude early next year.

PRISM is the third clinical study conducted on P-Capt filtered red cells and follows two human trials conducted by ProMetic, MacoPharma and the Irish Blood Transfusion Service.  Both studies demonstrated that the filter successfully met all safety requirements, with no adverse events, Prometic added.

“P-Capt has been extensively and independently tested for three years,” said Iwona Walicka, project manager of MacoPharma, which makes and distributes the filter.  “It works (99.9% or greater reduction efficacy), it’s safe and it’s available now.”