Richard Meehan
President and CEO, Velico
A medical breakthrough spray-dried plasma manufacturing system is redefining emergency care, bringing rapidly rehydrated plasma to where it is needed most.
Every year, thousands of people die unnecessarily from blood loss. While research tells us receiving blood within 30 minutes increases patients’ chances of survival, this is not always an option due to a fragile and centralised blood supply chain.
Richard Meehan, President and CEO of Velico Medical, explains: “Plasma typically requires freezing, specialised storage and careful transport, all of which slow down delivery and limit access, especially for emergencies or remote locations.” Current global production capacity falls far short of today’s military and civilian demand. “Velico is moving to solve that problem,” says Meehan.
Rethinking plasma
Velico aims to minimise preventable deaths from bleeding. Their FrontlineODP™ system aims to enable local, scalable and high-capacity production of spray-dried plasma. Fitted into existing blood-component labs or a modular veliPod unit, it is designed to bypass cold-chain restrictions and will make plasma available where and when it is needed most, in prehospital settings.
Meehan continues: “Our technology spray-dries a unit of plasma in approximately 35 minutes. That unit can then be stored for up to two years in a fridge or six months at room temperature. Unlike traditional plasma, it no longer relies on the frozen cold chain. It can be rehydrated in as little as two and a half minutes; ready for use in a soldier’s backpack or the back of an ambulance.”
Every year, thousands of
people die unnecessarily
from blood loss.
Future-proofing the blood supply chain
“We’re building a decentralised plasma production model. Instead of relying on expensive, centralised pharma factories with long turnaround times, we place our devices directly into blood centres,” explains Meehan.
Research shows that dried plasma improves survival rates by 33% for bleeding trauma patients, acting as a ‘biobridge’ to give patients enough hemodynamic support to survive long enough to reach emergency surgery. This work represents a bold step forward in global blood supply innovation, with potential impact for civilian emergency response, military medicine and mass casualty events.
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“We’re the only company on the planet focused solely on solving the global plasma availability challenge. Others in the space have broader agendas. We are continuing to scale to support that mission, and our plan is to have devices across the US, EU, UK and Australia,” concludes Meehan. With the technology successfully meeting all safety endpoints in its recent phase 1 clinical trial, Velico is now one step closer to being able to transform emergency care globally.
