Velico® Launches Blood Center Education Program with South Texas Blood & Tissue

News Release: December 2022

Velico® is proud to announce the launch of its Blood Center Education Program (BCEP) at South Texas Blood & Tissue (STB&T), a subsidiary of San Antonio non-profit BioBridge Global.

“This collaboration is the first of its kind in the nation and reflects the shared vision of Velico® and STB&T of advancing life-saving blood products through the development process,” says Richard Meehan, President and CEO of Velico®.

Velico’s® BCEP is designed to generate deep customer feedback on the commissioning and operational aspects of the FrontlineODP™ system for spray drying plasma.

“South Texas Blood & Tissue is pleased to collaborate with Velico® as a BCEP partner. We take great pride in our history of firsts, leading change and innovation in blood transfusion products and services” says Adrienne Mendoza, STB&T Chief Operating Officer.

FrontlineODP™ is expected to be an easy to produce, easy to use, point-of-care plasma product for transfusion in settings where current plasma products (most often frozen) are unavailable or inconvenient to use because of challenging cold chain logistics and short dating. Velico’s® proprietary spray drying process results in a powdered plasma product that can be stored in a refrigerator or at ambient temperature and then reconstituted on-scene in minutes. With FrontlineODP™, plasma could become more readily available to first responders such as ground or air ambulances, in rural hospitals where plasma is typically not stocked, for the military, and during mass casualty events.

Velico’s® development program has been funded in whole or in part with federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, under contract number 75A50121C00059.

About Velico®:

Velico® Medical, Inc. is a private US medical technology company, committed to the mission of eliminating preventable death from bleeding. Headquartered in Beverly, Massachusetts, USA. Velico® personnel have substantial expertise and experience in transfusion medicine and medical device development. In support of its mission, Velico® is developing partnerships with civilian, government and military blood center leadership, trauma surgeons, emergency medical physicians, military medics and first responders worldwide.

About South Texas Blood & Tissue:

South Texas Blood & Tissue (STB&T) is a non-profit community blood center that provides blood, plasma, platelets and other blood components to 100 hospitals in 48 South Texas counties. It is the largest blood supplier in our region. In addition, STB&T supports the development of advanced therapies, including those derived from donated human cells and tissues used in research and in new therapies and cures for cancers and degenerative diseases. Through the generous life-legacy gifts of human tissue, STB&T also supports development of tissue allografts for patients in need of reconstructive surgery, repair or tissue regeneration. STB&T has a 47-year history serving the South Texas community and is part of the BioBridge Global family of non-profit organizations, which offers services in regenerative medicine and research including blood banking and resource management; cellular therapy; umbilical cord blood collection and storage; donated human tissue recovery and distribution for transplant; and testing of blood and plasma products to help patients in the United States and worldwide. STB&T has eight donor centers in South Texas and conducts hundreds of mobile blood drives each year. STB&T is online at SouthTexasBlood.org.

Media contact: press@veli.co