Pall Corporation Launches Next Generation Blood Filter that Simultaneously Reduces Prions and Leukocytes
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y., February 02, 2010 - Pall Corporation (NYSE: PLL), a global leader in filtration, separation and purification, today announced the launch of the Leukotrap® Affinity Plus Prion and Leukocyte Reduction Filter System. The new blood filter reduces prions and leukocytes in a single step. The Leukotrap® Affinity Plus System is CE marked in accordance with requirements set out in the Medical Devices Directive (93/42/EEC).
Infectious prions (PRPsc) are known to be the causative agent of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). The Pall Leukotrap Affinity Plus System reduces PRPSC prion by >3 LOG on average, based on Western blot methodology. As a primary leukocyte and prion reduction technology, it also facilitates superior hemoglobin recovery, to meet current EU requirements.
CE marking of the Pall Leukotrap Affinity Plus System supports new guidance from the United Kingdom’s Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SaBTO), which recently recommended pre-transfusion filtration of red blood cells to remove prions, for children born after January 1, 1996. The guidance, which is subject to completion of clinical trials currently underway in Britain, is a response to the incidence of vCJD in the wake of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) cases in Europe.
A human form of BSE, or Mad Cow Disease, vCJD is a fatal neurodegenerative disease which can lie dormant for many years and for which there is no cure. Since 1996, strong evidence has accumulated for a causal relationship between outbreaks of BSE in cattle and vCJD in humans. Since people can incubate vCJD with no clinical signs or symptoms of disease for decades, there is no way to determine who or how many people may be harboring the fatal prion nor how many of these people may be blood donors. A single vCJD-infected blood donor has the potential to amplify human-to-human transmission, creating the basis for a far more widespread infection.
“We commend SaBTO for taking an important lead in securing the U.K.’s blood supply from this devastating disease," said Eric Krasnoff, Pall Chairman and CEO. "Pall's next generation Leukotrap® System reflects our ongoing commitment to advancing blood safety and availability. It builds on Pall’s legacy of innovation as the originator of leukocyte filtration,” Mr. Krasnoff said. Introduced in the early 1990's, Pall's leukoreduction filters are the global standard of care for transfusion medicine.
Roberto Perez, President, Pall Life Sciences added, “Our goal is to help blood centers and hospitals enhance their ability to provide patients with access to the safest blood possible for transfusions. We do this by developing innovative technologies that they can efficiently and economically put into practice. This new product which simultaneously accomplishes prion filtration and leukocyte reduction brings us another step closer to this shared goal."
Pall Life Sciences provides cutting-edge products and services to meet the demanding needs of customers discovering, developing and producing biotech drugs, vaccines and classic pharmaceuticals. Pall technologies are also used to collect and process blood components and help protect patients from hospital-acquired infections. The company’s membranes and membrane devices optimize detection and sample preparation in the drug research, clinical diagnostics, genomics, and proteomics markets. Pall is a leading provider of separation systems and single-use filtration and purification technologies to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to support faster development of new drugs and vaccines that are safer and require less energy and water to produce.
About Pall Corporation
Pall Corporation (NYSE:PLL) is a filtration, separation and purification leader providing Total Fluid ManagementSM solutions to meet the critical needs of customers in biopharmaceutical, hospital and transfusion medicine, energy and alternative energy, electronics, municipal and industrial water, aerospace, transportation and broad industrial markets. Together with our customers, we foster health, safety and environmentally responsible technologies. The Company’s engineered solutions enable process and product innovation and minimize emissions and waste. Pall Corporation, with total revenues of $2.3 billion for fiscal 2009, is an S&P 500 company with more than 10,000 employees servicing customers worldwide. Pall has been named a top "green company" by Newsweek magazine. To see how Pall is helping enable a greener and more sustainable future, visit www.pall.com.
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