Two teenagers surviving sickle cell disease met some of the people helping them do it through blood donation on Wednesday.
They go to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital every four weeks for blood transfusions.
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The teens were able to get a better idea of where the blood they receive comes from, and the people who donate the blood now know more about the people they help.
HOLD FOR RELEASE MEDIA CONTACT July 11, 2019 Jenny Ficenec, jficenec@oldbcacoop.metisentry.net
Digital Hub Connects Blood Transfusion Patients with Facts and Resources for Life-Saving Treatment Options
WEST WARWICK, Rhode Island – (July 11, 2019) – Nearly 4.5 million Americans each year receive life-saving treatment using donated blood. To empower these patients and their families, Blood Centers of America has launched blood4me, an online resource that provides access to research, answers questions and offers support throughout the transfusion process. It is funded by the Commonwealth Transfusion Foundation.
“Transfusions play a vital role in saving lives, improving recovery time, providing hope and caring for patients across the U.S.,” said John Armitage, M.D., past chairman of BCA who has been a driving force behind the initiative. “Doctors rely on transfusions to treat both acute and chronic conditions — from disease to injury to surgery to chemotherapy. For these patients, transfusions can help make a meaningful difference in overall care and health outcomes.”
One patient diagnosed with aplastic anemia said his first blood transfusion brought feelings of fear as he came to terms with the realities of the disease. Without the right resources or information, this experience can be the norm. blood4me aims to guide patients through the process, helping ensure they’re in the best position to receive the care that best meets their unique needs.
“We often hear of confusion and misconceptions around blood transfusions,” Dr. Armitage said. “This is a new, accessible empowerment tool for patients and their loved ones which will help reduce anxiety and confusion and increase safety and satisfaction.”
Improved outcomes and experiences can make a lasting impact for patients. Each year, BCA members alone distribute an estimated 6.5 million total blood components.[1]
Bill Block, BCA President and CEO, noted that “Hope is in our blood. blood4me’s goal is to ensure patients have the opportunity to research, ask questions and participate in decisions about the care they receive. blood4me offers support to patients to help make each transfusion as smooth and effective as possible.”
blood4me is managed by the Foundation for Blood Centers of America and supported through a grant from the Commonwealth Transfusion Foundation. For more information, visit www.blood4me.com.
About Blood Centers of America
Blood Centers of America (BCA) is a member-owned organization comprised of over 50 independent blood centers throughout the North America, representing nearly 40% of the U.S. blood supply. Along with their core business of providing a substantial portion of U.S. blood supply, other BCA member services include patient blood management, transfusion services, immunohematology testing, therapeutic apheresis and tissue and cord blood banking. In addition, BCA members provide a variety of human blood products, cells and tissues to the therapeutic, diagnostic and cell therapy industries. Learn more at www.oldbcacoop.metisentry.net.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MEDIA CONTACT June 6, 2019 Jenny Ficenec
401-381-0600/jficenec@oldbcacoop.metisentry.net
BLOOD CENTERS OF AMERICA PARTNERS WITH TOP ESPORTS ORGANIZATION, TEAM LIQUID
West Warwick, RI – Blood Centers of America (BCA) announced today that with its members, they are partnering with Team Liquid, a multi-regional, professional esports organization, to raise awareness of the importance of blood donation and to encourage donations.
BCA is a national, member-owned network of over 50 independent blood centers – each that has a singular focus of providing high-quality blood products for patients in their communities. With less than 20% of blood donations coming from 20-34-year-olds, BCA is joining hands with Team Liquid in an effort to encourage more donations from these key generational demographics.
“Blood donations have never been more important, and everyone can play a part in making sure that people who need blood are able to get it,” said Bill Block, BCA president and CEO. “What we see is that over 45% of blood donations come from donors that are over 50, and the average age of donors is increasing each year. We need to engage younger generations in order to maintain an available blood supply.
Custom, limited Team Liquid t-shirts will be offered to everyone who donates blood in one of the branded buses or at a participating blood center location. These branded buses will travel to universities, Team Liquid events and other locations in order to increase awareness of the importance of blood donation.
“We’re proud to partner with Blood Centers of America and its members on this live-saving initiative,” says Steve Arhancet. “Our fans are such a supportive, tight-knit community, and now we’re calling on them to help us accomplish something bigger than what we could achieve in any competition. Collectively, we have the opportunity to make a measurable impact on communities as well as save lives.”
The need for blood is significant. Every two seconds an American needs blood. One whole pint of blood can save three or more lives. As the largest network of blood centers in the U.S., BCA members ensure donated blood reaches patients at hospitals and health systems nationwide.
“This is a unique opportunity for us to reach a crucial demographic of eligible blood donors in the U.S.,” explains Bill Block. “If everyone touched by this campaign signs up and shares the message with family and friends, we would see a major difference.”
This program has been funded through a generous grant from The Commonwealth Transfusion Foundation.
About Blood Centers of America
Blood Centers of America (BCA) is a member-owned organization comprised of over 50 independent blood centers throughout North America, representing nearly 40% of the U.S. blood supply. Along with their core business of providing a substantial portion of U.S. blood supply, other BCA member services include patient blood management, transfusion services, immunohematology testing, therapeutic apheresis and tissue and cord blood banking. In addition, BCA members provide a variety of human blood products, cells and tissues to the therapeutic, diagnostic and cell therapy industries. Learn more at www.oldbcacoop.metisentry.net.
About Team Liquid
Team Liquid was founded in 2000 and has evolved into one of the leading international multigame esports teams with training centers in Utrecht, The Netherlands, Sao Paulo, Brazil and Los Angeles, California. Team Liquid has over 65 athletes competing across 17 distinct games, including all major esports titles, such as DOTA 2, League of Legends, CS:GO, Fortnite, PUBG and more. Led by Co-CEOs Steve Arhancet and Victor Goossens, Team Liquid is one of the most successful esports teams in the Western market in terms of competitive achievement and fan engagement across multiple sports. Their League of Legends franchise is undefeated in North America in 2018 and 2019, claiming LCS titles in back-to-back splits and a second place finish at the international tournament the Mid-Season Invitational, while their CS:GO team is currently ranked #1 in the world. For more information: https://goo.gl/dSYvHT.
In addition to the premier esports team franchise, Liquid Enterprises operates various business units created to complement its esports athletic brand. This includes influencer management agency, Liquipedia, Liquid Media, and 1UP Studios, the full service production company known for its high-quality esports documentary style filmmaking, and creative commercial content.
Controlling interest in Team Liquid was recently purchased by esports ownership group, aXiomatic. aXiomatic leadership includes Co-Executive Chairmen Peter Guber, Ted Leonsis, Jeff Vinik and Bruce Karsh who together represent an unparalleled team of sports, technology, entertainment and investment industry titans.
About Commonwealth Transfusion Foundation
Commonwealth Transfusion Foundation is a freestanding private foundation dedicated to advancing the art and science of transfusion medicine with a mission of championing excellence in transfusion medicine. It is our hope that, through our mission, we build a stronger community of hospitals, health care providers, and patients.
Key Biologics and Blood Centers of America Partner to Advance Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine
Collaboration aims to open up access to important new therapies
MEMPHIS, TN and WEST WARWICK, RI – September 4, 2018 – Key Biologics LLC and Blood Centers of America (BCA) today announced an agreement to formalize their existing business relationship and to work collectively to broaden support for cell therapy and regenerative medicine. The agreement will enable deeper support of joint research and product development and provide valuable expertise needed for commercial therapies. Working together, the organizations will focus on removing barriers to the supply of critical raw materials needed for pre-clinical research and for clinical manufacturing of cell-based therapies.
The companies are both sponsors at the CAR-TCR Summit taking place this week in Boston, September 4-7 at the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center. Key Biologics will be at booth #43 and BCA will be at booth #44.
“Working with BCA and their extensive network, we believe we can speed patients’ access to important new therapies formulated from allogeneic and autologous raw materials that can be used to effectively treat conditions such as cancer, immune-based disorders, and inherited genetic disorders,” said Dr. Edward Scott, founder of Key Biologics. “The ability to access BCA’s unique database of well-characterized individuals who have explicitly expressed an interest in providing blood products to support research and product development will enhance our efforts significantly.”
Key Biologics recently completed a merger with Seattle-based Astarte Biologics adding highly complementary immunology expertise that will play a valuable role in expanding the combined company’s cell characterization, custom cell line and assay development capabilities. The addition of Astarte’s product and service line will allow BCA members and their customers to gain access to highly characterized cells and qualified cell lines. In conjunction with the merger, the company also received a growth equity investment from Ampersand Capital Partners to continue expanding the company in the rapidly evolving cell and gene therapy markets.
Going forward, Key and BCA will work together to leverage each organization’s resources and unique capabilities. For BCA members, the relationship will provide opportunities for support of new customers with a need for a distributed collection network or specific services not provided by Key. With BCA’s database of well-characterized individuals, Key can provide its customers access to raw materials from donors with specific characteristics, such as rare HLA type, that are not available in Key’s database. Additionally, with Key’s planned opening of collection sites in the Boston area and on the West Coast in Q1 2019, BCA’s service area will also expand allowing it to offer services to new customers in those areas.
“We are enthusiastic about the complementary nature of Key Biologics’ and the BCA members’ expertise and BCA’s national coverage” said Bill Block, CEO of BCA. “We believe that in addition, our combined nationwide coverage and each organization’s strategic relationships will create new opportunities for BCA members to fulfill their mission of providing lifesaving products to patients. We have successfully worked with Key Biologics and Dr. Scott for many years and look forward to expanding our relationship.”
About Blood Centers of America (BCA)
BCA is the nation’s largest blood supply network, providing nearly 40 percent of the nation’s blood supply. This national organization is comprised of over 50 independent community blood centers and source plasma collection centers with a deep local commitment to the communities and patients they serve.
The BCA network encompasses over 600 collection and testing sites across the United States. In addition to meeting the transfusion needs of the communities they serve, BCA members provide human blood products, cells and tissue to the therapeutic, diagnostic and cell therapy industries. BCA members also collect and provide critical raw materials for manufacturing of all US-licensed autologous cell-based therapies. Collectively BCA’s members interact with nearly three million individual blood donors annually. BCA members also offer a broad range of services to support cell therapy development, including provision of healthy donor cellular products for research use, cell selection, processing and storage, and manufacturing of cell-based therapeutics. Key Biologics is an Associate Member of BCA.
About Key Biologics LLC
Memphis-based Key Biologics provides research- and clinical-grade human cells and blood products and related services to pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device and academic institutions around the world. The company is focused on advancing life science from discovery, through R&D, and into curing disease. The company began support of this industry in 1999 when its antecedent, Lifeblood Biological Services (LBS), was created by Dr. Edward Scott to meet the needs of biotech companies for well-characterized human biological materials to support research and development. Lifeblood’s recognition of the industry need and the business opportunity that resulted occurred a decade or more before other community blood centers embraced that view. Because of its long history and reputation, Key Biologics is viewed as the preferred partner for cell sourcing within the industry. With its recent merger with Astarte Biologics, the company now also offers the largest selection of characterized immune cells and reagents to help immunology and inflammation researchers accelerate their discovery efforts. All products are well characterized, tested negative for blood borne pathogens, and searchable by donor blood type, gender, age, ethnicity and disease state. For more information, visit www.keybiologics.com and www.astartebio.com.
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Media Contact:
Tim Walsh
Walsh Group Marketing
617.512.1641
timw@walshgroupmarketing.com
West Warwick, RI, July 20, 2017– Blood Centers of America (BCA) announced today that New York Blood Center (NYBC) has joined its network of blood and source plasma collection centers.
BCA is a national, member-owned network of over 50 independent blood centers – each of which has a singular focus of providing high-quality blood products for patients in their communities. As one of the largest independent community-based blood centers in the world, NYBC will expand BCA’s share of the total U.S. blood supply to nearly 40 percent.
“New York Blood Center’s commitment to quality blood products, innovative research and transfusion medicine leadership make them an ideal member of BCA,” said John Armitage, M.D., Chairman of BCA. “We are excited to add New York Blood Center’s unique services and expertise to our own, and collaborate to serve more communities across the country.”READ MORE>>
West Warwick, RI, October 7, 2016– Blood Centers of America is pleased to announce its membership in the recently formed Council for Diabetes Prevention to support the delivery of the Centers of Disease Control National Diabetes Prevention Program.
“BCA and its members are uniquely positioned to deploy the National Diabetes Prevention Program by leveraging our diverse footprint, mobility and our long standing trust in the communities we serve. This provides us an additional opportunity to better serve and support our donor population as well as the communities that have established many of our blood centers.”
-Bill Block, President/CEO Blood Centers of America
The Council for Diabetes Prevention brings together industry stakeholders to increase access to the National Diabetes Prevention Program, promote high-quality standards, and support the long-term scalability and sustainability of this unique patient-centric, community-based program. Click here to read more>>>
The International Plasma Fractionation Association (IPFA) and Blood Centers of America (BCA) are pleased to announce the 3rd Global Symposium on the Future for Blood and Plasma Donations. This Symposium will build on the success of the 2014 and 2015 meetings, which highlighted the increasing global need for plasma derived medicinal products and identified opportunities for Blood Centers to contribute to this need. Each meeting attracted about 180 delegates from throughout the USA and other countries. We have received excellent feedback from delegates to these meetings.
Key issues
This third Symposium will continue to develop the theme of plasma supply. Hosted by Blood Assurance, a non-profit, full-service regional blood center serving 51 counties and more than 70 health care facilities in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia, a comprehensive range of topics will be addressed including:
• Clinical developments in plasma product use
• Plasma supply – optimizing plasma collection and economics
• Donor recruitment
• Industry developments in support of blood establishments
• Keeping donors and plasma safe
• Regulatory issues
• Quality management of plasma
SEATTLE, WA – 3/8/2016 – Blood Bank Computer Systems, Inc. (BBCS) today announced a new partnership with Blood Centers of America (BCA). This partnership marks a major milestone in BCA’s standardization initiative. Blood centers that are BCA members now have the opportunity to select a common BECS and receive a group purchasing discount, ultimately reducing their software costs, improving information exchange, all while gaining access to the cutting-edge technology of ABO Suite™.
“BBCS and BCA share a passion for this industry and for those we serve. This partnership is an extension of our desire to strengthen the community blood centers by delivering a robust, industry-leading product – ABO Suite™. We are looking forward to building long term relationships with each member of BCA,” says Beth Simon, CEO of BBCS.
“Our members continuously explore ways to become more efficient. We have a significant number of members already using BBCS and many members that are in the process of evaluating moving to a new BECS system. BCA Members that decide to move to BBCS in the future will be rewarded for standardizing and this in turn will benefit the total number of members using BBCS. We appreciate the chance to work with BBCS in a strategic way as our members continue to evaluate their decisions in this important area,” says Bill Block, CEO of BCA.
For more information about how to increase efficiencies and lower your blood center’s costs, visit BBCS and learn about the feature rich benefits of ABO Suite™.
If you are a BCA member and would like more information about this partnership, please contact Nina Salamon of BCA or BBCS Sales.
About BBCS
For over 30 years, Blood Bank Computer Systems, Inc. (BBCS) has been a dedicated partner to the blood banking industry. BBCS has chosen to remain privately owned to ensure that we can focus on fulfilling our commitments to our clients, the communities that they serve, and the industry. By establishing an annual BBCS CEO Summit, hosting annual meetings with our User Group, and participating in industry conferences we have built rich partnerships with our clients, vendors, and industry organizations.
About BCA
BCA is a member-owned organization comprised of nearly 50 independent blood centers geographically dispersed throughout the North America, representing over 30 percent of the U.S. blood supply. Along with their core business of providing a substantial portion of U.S. blood supply, BCA members provide a variety of other services including, patient blood management, transfusion services, immunohematology testing, therapeutic apheresis and tissue and cord blood banking. In addition, BCA members provide a variety of human blood products, cells and tissues to the therapeutic, diagnostic and cell therapy industries.
