But that does not appear to hold if the patient has a substitute. Ms. Gruszka's doctors said she thrived while Hemopure was delivering oxygen to her body, even though her red-cell concentrations tumbled below 5 percent. Substitutes have significant advantages over donated blood, and the development of usable products has long been a tantalizing goal. The substitutes measure their shelf lives in years, rather than the 5 to 40 days for various blood components. The Defense Department and emergency medical services have been especially anxious to have blood substitutes that can be stored at room temperature and used in remote locations without worrying about the need to match blood types.
Cost is indeed an issue.
Biopure says the product is not as expensive as it looks because doctors will normally use just one Hemopure unit instead of two to three units of donated human red blood cells. But that still works out to a hefty premium. But estimates vary wildly as to the size of the the market and how fast it can grow if regulators give substitutes the go-ahead. By then, though, Biopure and others expect to be selling their products as therapeutic aids outside the blood market. Biopure has already begun trials in California on the use of Hemopure to pump oxygen into tumors, where normal blood circulates poorly, to make them easier targets for radiation and other cancer treatments.