Yet BioTime has failed to correct or deny any of these baseless claims. It is absurd to claim that Hextend will take market share from the dependable and widely-used crystalloids at roughly 50 to 100 times their price. It offers no advantage over other colloids on the market, as shown in the company's own studies, which are discussed below. There is no reasonable basis to believe Hextend can make inroads into the albumin market. Simply stated, Hextend and Hespan can not perform all the same functions of albumin.
Albumin is considered by physicians to be a safe and superior product to hetastarch.
BioTime claims albumin poses contamination risks. Albumin is precipitated from plasma by an alcohol process and then pasteurized by heating at 60 C for ten hours. We did not find a single reported case of disease contracted by a recipient from an albumin donor in the 50 years it has been on the U.S. market. Hespan itself has not penetrated the albumin market in the 26 years it has been on the market. There is no reason to believe that Hextend, which is simply a slightly altered version of Hespan, will capture albumin's market.