Cerus Signs INTERCEPT Platelet Agreements With Two Key Blood Component Suppliers in Germany and Austria

• TILAK, University Clinics, Regional Hospital Innsbruck (LKI), one of the largest hospitals in Austria, signs one year agreement for Cerus’ INTERCEPT platelet system.
• ZIT GmbH Hamburg (Zentralinstitut Hamburg), the largest in-house blood component supplier of the German Asklepios Group, signs four year agreement for the INTERCEPT Blood System for pathogen inactivation of platelet components.

CONCORD, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Cerus Corporation (NAS: CERS) announced today that the TILAK, University Clinics, Regional Hospital Innsbruck (LKI) in Austria and ZIT GmbH Hamburg in Germany, signed one and four year purchase agreements, respectively, for the INTERCEPT Blood System for platelets.

LKI is one of the largest hospitals in Austria, with its Central Institute for Blood Transfusion supplying an estimated 6,000 platelet units annually to the federal state of Tyrol. LKI is the second facility in Austria to adopt INTERCEPT for platelets. Together with the General Hospital of Vienna (AKH), an estimated total of 12,000 platelet units, or 30% of the Austrian platelet market, could be treated with INTERCEPT. Implementation of the INTERCEPT platelet system at LKI is expected to start in March 2013.

ZIT Hamburg supplies roughly 10,000 platelet units annually and is the largest in-house blood component supplier to the Asklepios Group, one of the three largest operators of private hospitals in Germany. Implementation is expected to occur upon ZIT Hamburg’s receipt of regulatory approval from the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut to produce INTERCEPT-treated platelets.

“Considering the inherent limitations and increasing cost of the current testing strategies used for platelets, we believe the INTERCEPT Blood System for platelets offers a strong value proposition that combines patient safety with commercial benefits,” stated O. Schertges, CEO of the ZIT Hamburg.

“We believe the breadth of clinical and routine-use data for INTERCEPT platelets accumulated over the last 10 years may have positively influenced the decisions made by LKI and ZIT Hamburg,” said William ‘Obi’ Greenman, Cerus’ president and chief executive officer. “It is this clinical experience and hemovigilance data that led to FDA‘s recent agreement to allow Cerus to proceed with a modular PMA submission for INTERCEPT platelets without the need to conduct another prospective clinical trial.”

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance