Looking to Raise Funds for New Technology to Remove Iron from Transfused Blood

I want to share this with everyone. This would be a major development for transfusing patients. The company is looking for financial support through crowd funding, which is a proven effective method for raising funds from many donors.
I recommend that people take a close look at this. It involves what happens to the blood as soon as it is transfused. If the amount of iron being released could be reduced, it would make chelation so much easier.

"Hi Andy
My name is Alan Perlstein, I am the CEO of a new biotech startup based out of NYC.
Our company, Ex Vivo Dynamics is developing a filtering technology designed to clean blood during transfusion by removing blood that would normally lyse within 24 hours. This lysed blood releases huge amounts of iron which the body cannot handle thereby resulting in iron overload. As you know Iron overload is a severe complication for Thalassemia patients requiring chronic transfusions.The technology we are developing can help patients suffering from Thalassemia lead a higher quality of life with lower drug regimen's and out of pocket costs.
The reason I am contacting you is because my company has launched a crowd-funding campaign to help develop our technology.We are currently looking to raise funds to gain enough preclinical data to be eligible for grant funding. Would it be possible to include a link to our campaign in your Thalassemia support group ? please feel free to reach out ."

http://www.medstartr.com/projects/296-bloodguard-making-blood-better

Thanks for the link. I visited the site and googled the information on the net.

Number of questions as follows:

It is unclear, how much they are planning to raise.
How much has been raised so far.
No clue where to donate.
When was the company started.
What are the results of first prototype.
How much estimated time they need to perfect the filter.
No clue how the filter works (except a diagram which does not provide much information).
Source of funding for them so far.

Hope Mr. Alan would not mind providing more details.

I will pass your questions along.

merci beaucoup.....

I just received this reply.

Here is the link to our crowd funding page
http://www.medstartr.com/projects/296-bloodguard-making-blood-better
People can donate by clicking the "donate to this project " green button on the right side of the page.
Usually after blood is  collected, it is spun down to separate the red blood cells and then it is filtered with a leukocyte reduction filter. These methods remove about ~ 95% of the white blood cells and platelets but still some get through. Our bloodguard filtration technology can  potentially remove the remaining non blood cell components .Another reason for immune reactions after blood transfusion is that after 2-3 weeks after the blood is donated,a quarter of blood is usually irreversibly damaged. When this blood enters  the patient, they are phagocytosed  by the patients macrophages and this releases a surge of inflammatory products which the patients body cannot possibly handle in such a short time. This is leading theory of why so many immune reactions occur even after they go through the leukocyte reduction.
We started our company in April 2013.
We have raised roughly $20k by winning business competitions in New York  which let us build our first prototypes , set up our laboratory , hire an expert to help in our testing , and run some limited tests. With our current fundraiser we are looking to raise at least another 10k-20k so we can expand our scope of tests so we then can apply for U.S government grants that can help us move bloodguard through optimization & animal trials .
Our filter works in a couple of different ways to remove unviable blood cells and non- blood cells.
1) by size exclusion  using filter membranes
2) by chemical binding
3) micro fluidic separation.
Our tests show that we can remove the targeted components with out damaging the healthy blood cells . We have managed to currently remove roughly ~20% of damaged blood cells and some of the non blood cells as well.
Our current timeline is we that aim to to increase our capture rate to 80% by march 2015 run animal trials in April 2015-August  2015 . Human trials from September  2015- march 2016. To be on the market towards the end of 2016 . And finally to start bringing our technology to international markets in 2017. This all depends on how quickly we can get funding.
I hope this helps with the questions.
If there are any more please let me know.

Thank you for asking the questions Canadian Family, and thank you Andy for providing the answers.  This seems like a great technology.  Wish it had been around years ago to help prevent some of the antibody issues lil A and others have developed.  I think that the technology holds a lot of promise. 

Sharmin

It is a pleasure to know that new systems are being developed each day. I hope this project sees light of the day. I will try to donate in future.