Blood donors surprised Canadian plasma products being sold abroad

Peter Johnson walks into his Canadian Blood Services donation centre in Saint John every week to give plasma. 

​As a child, Johnson suffered from idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, which leads to bruising and bleeding. He was treated with steroids, but today, one of the treatments is intravenous immunoglobulin, made from plasma. 

That’s why he has been giving plasma ever since he was old enough to donate. 

The two-hour process pulls whole blood from Johnson’s arm, separating out the yellow plasma and returning the rest back into his body. He knows the value of his donations.  

What he didn’t know was that Canadian Blood Services sells Canadian blood donation byproducts to the multinational pharmaceutical company Grifols SA, based in Barcelona, Spain. That company is now using Canadian plasma to make medications in Grifols’s Montreal plant for sale abroad. 

Johnson said he has a “fundamental problem” with donations being used for profit.  

“My preference would be that it be maintained in a not-for-profit type of an environment,” he said. “I think that’s the intent of the donor.”

Johnson said he believes others would agree, if they knew donations were being turned into profit.

“I think so, because I just learned today, and I like to think I’m quite well-informed and connected to the system and how it works,” he said. “And most would be interested in knowing that, I would think.”

Canadian Blood Services manages Canada’s blood supply everywhere except Quebec, where it’s run by Héma-Québec, and in 2022 it entered into an agreement with Grifols to help collect plasma on its behalf. 

Plasma makes up more than half of a person’s blood and is rich in protein. It can be transfused directly into patients during major surgery and to treat trauma, or it can be used to make medications.

Grifols has been using plasma to make immunoglobulins in the form of a product called Gamunex, exclusively for patients in Canada. But that process results in valuable byproducts that could be used to produce other medications. 

When CBC News asked in January what was being done with those byproducts, Canadian Blood Services said they were being thrown out.

But on a Grifols call with investors and analysts this summer, CEO Nacho Abia said the company is using those Canadian byproducts to create a product called albumin. And this medicine is being sold internationally. 

“Our first Canadian-made albumin, manufactured at our facility in Montreal, has successfully reached our patients,” Abia said.  

“At this point, it’s only producing albumin. The plan is in the future it will also fractionate products. … And we don’t provide the specific numbers about this project, but, essentially, I think we are becoming a very solid partner with the health-care system in Canada.”  

Canadian Blood Services later confirmed that a deal to sell those byproducts was reached in February. 

The non-profit wouldn’t say how much it earns from the sale of the plasma. It said the proceeds offset the cost of buying immunoglobulins for Canadians.

‘A recipe for disaster’   

“The whole thing doesn’t pass the smell test,” said Steve Staples of the Canadian Health Coalition, a non-profit that advocates for the public health-care system.

He said the February agreement with Grifols was a significant departure from the commitments patients and legislators were given when the partnership with the company was announced in 2022.

“This arrangement is becoming more and more complicated and the longer it goes on, the more difficult it will be to extricate ourselves from this if we find that there is a problem.”

Canadian Blood Services got its origins in the wake of the tainted blood crisis in the 1980s, when more than 30,000 Canadians were infected with HIV or hepatitis C from poorly screened blood products. 

Justice Horace Krever led a public inquiry and recommended the establishment of a new voluntary blood collection system — which led to the establishment of Canadian Blood Services — to mitigate the risks that can come when private companies pay people to donate their blood.

Staples said he fears Canada is now losing control of its blood supply, and the lack of transparency and accountability has made it one of his top concerns. 

“We actually have two parallel systems growing now,” he said. “We have a non-profit Canadian Blood Services collection system going Canada-wide and … we’ve got this for-profit company that’s kind of in bed with Canadian Blood Services also setting up operations. It’s a real mishmash, and I think it could be a recipe for disaster.”

Staples said it’s time for the federal government to intervene and get a good look at the terms of the contracts being signed. 

“We may find ourselves in a system where we’ve lost our ability to run this in a way that puts patients first instead of profits first,” he said. 

Complicating the matter of plasma collection on behalf of Canadian Blood Services is the fact that Grifols also has its own collection centres, where it pays people for plasma donations. 

The company now has 17 paid plasma centres in Canada — outside of B.C. and Quebec, where payment for plasma is prohibited — and in June it posted new payment rates for new donors.

Johnson said paying for plasma should be the exception — not the rule. 

“If you ever got to the point where there was a crunch and in order to encourage people to donate to come up with the necessary supply you needed to pay them, well, then that’s one thing,” he said when asked his opinion on banning paid plasma clinics. 

“But if that’s not the case, you can get your supply voluntarily, then I think it would be a good idea for the government to do that.”

Donors unaware of Grifols agreement

Tom Frankish, who lives in Ottawa, rolls up his sleeves every week to donate plasma at a Canadian Blood Services collection centre. While vacationing in New Brunswick last month, he made that weekly appointment in Saint John. 

He said his son and daughter-in-law are both doctors, and his mother-in-law is a transplant recipient. It’s part of the reason for his dedication. 

When asked if it concerned him that donated blood is being used by a private company for profit, he said, “Yes, that would bother me a little bit. Yes, absolutely.”

Longtime donor Mike Horgan doesn’t like the fact that Canadian plasma products are being sold abroad.

“Yeah, that’s not right,” he said. “Definitely shouldn’t be allowed.”

Horgan has more than 1,000 donations marked on his Canadian Blood Services donor card. It’s been his weekly ritual for decades, missing only the two weeks at Christmas when blood collection closes down. 

The retired police officer said he doesn’t agree with a private company “trying to cash in … and make money off other people.”

But he still supports Canadian Blood Services and will continue with his weekly plasma donations.

“It still goes to a good cause.”

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