Versiti and Vitrafy Life Sciences Ltd today announced a collaboration to evaluate Vitrafy’s next-generation cryopreservation technology for blood products, beginning with an initial focus on platelets.
The collaboration brings together Versiti’s expertise across blood collection, transfusion medicine, research and laboratory services with Vitrafy’s proprietary cryopreservation ecosystem. The organizations plan to conduct proof-of-concept and work designed to evaluate how the technology could be incorporated into blood product workflows and support future clinical and regulatory development.
Platelets are an essential component of patient care but have a limited shelf life, creating ongoing challenges for inventory management and blood supply availability. Technologies capable of extending preservation while maintaining product quality could give blood centers greater flexibility to respond to fluctuations in demand, minimize unnecessary product loss and strengthen preparedness for emergencies and other supply disruptions.
“Our responsibility is to patients who depend on a safe and reliable blood supply today, while continuing to explore ways to strengthen that supply for the future,” said Carlos Villa, M.D., Ph.D., clinician-investigator at Versiti Blood Research Institute. “This collaboration gives us an opportunity to bring our scientific and blood banking expertise to the careful evaluation of a new approach to platelet preservation. We want to understand what the technology can do and whether it can ultimately help blood centers better serve patients.”
Vitrafy has developed an integrated cryopreservation ecosystem that combines controlled freezing technology with software designed to support the preservation and management of biological materials. The Versiti collaboration builds on Vitrafy’s ongoing work evaluating the technology for blood components and will initially focus on assessing its application to platelet preservation.
Based on the results of the initial work, the organizations may consider further development activities and evaluation of the technology for additional blood-derived products.
“Versiti brings an exceptional combination of blood banking expertise, scientific leadership and real-world operating experience,” said Brent Owens, Managing Director and CEO of Vitrafy Life Sciences. “This collaboration gives us the opportunity to evaluate our technology alongside a team that understands both the science of blood products and the practical requirements of delivering them to patients at scale. We believe that is essential to advancing a meaningful new approach to blood preservation.”
The collaboration is part of Versiti’s ongoing work with scientific and industry partners to explore new approaches to challenges in transfusion medicine and blood health. Through research, scientific expertise and experience operating blood centers, Versiti helps evaluate promising technologies with the goal of determining whether they can ultimately improve care for patients.
About Versiti
Versiti, a national leader in blood health innovation, was formed with the mission to improve the health of patients and enable the success of our health care partners nationally. We provide innovative, value-added solutions in the fields of transfusion medicine, transplantation and blood-related diseases to meet the needs of each of our customers. The collective efforts across Versiti result in improved patient outcomes, expanded access to care and cost efficiencies for health care systems nationwide.
For more information, visit versiti.org.
About Vitrafy Life Sciences
Vitrafy Life Sciences has developed a proprietary cryopreservation ecosystem that includes the Guardion cryopreservation freezing unit and Lifechain™, a cloud-based software platform designed to support an integrated approach to the preservation and management of biological materials. Vitrafy is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia and is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX: VFY).
For more information, visit vitrafy.com.