Westbury, NY – Mar. 3, 2020 – BioIVT, a leading provider of research models and services for drug and diagnostic development, announced that it is now providing same-day delivery of fresh blood, LEUKOMAX® leukopaks and buffy coats from normal and disease-state donors to cell and gene therapy researchers in the UK. BioIVT is also shipping these products overnight to certain EU locations.

This service is being offered through BioIVT’s CTLS donor center in London, which sees more than 2,500 donors per year. Since BioIVT acquired CTLS in 2018, it has expanded CTLS’ capabilities by introducing Spectra Optia apheresis systems, which allow it to collect leukopaks on site. BioIVT is now a premier provider of fresh leukopaks to the EU community.

“BioIVT is continuing to grow its business strategically to meet the exact needs of our clients. We currently have six donor centers located in California, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and London. The placement of our sites allows us to provide cell and gene therapy researchers across the US, UK and Europe with viable solutions precisely when they need them,” said BioIVT CEO Jeff Gatz.

“The UK is a hub for cell therapy, gene therapy and pharmaceutical companies who all require access to fresh blood and blood-derived immune cells for their research,” said BioIVT General Manager of EU Operations Kelly Sapsford. “As speed is of the essence for many of these clients, we have improved the efficiency with which we produce our high-quality blood products to allow same-day delivery.”

Leukopaks contain concentrated white blood cells and are used to help identify promising new drug candidates, assess toxicity levels, and conduct stem cell and gene therapy research. They are useful for researchers who need to obtain large numbers of leukocytes from a single donor.

BioIVT can also provide isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from its leukopaks to meet specific donor and specimen parameters. Both leukopaks and isolated PBMCs can be provided from repeat donors and those that have been human leukocyte antigen (HLA), FC receptor or cytomegalovirus typed. HLA typing is used to match patients and donors for bone marrow or cord blood transplants. FC receptors plays an important role in antibody-dependent immune responses.

Donors can be recruited based on specific criteria, such as body mass index, smoking status, age, gender, ethnicity and in some cases medications taken. All BioIVT donors are consented under institutional review board (IRB-) approved protocols and its staff follows European Medicines Agency (EMA) standards and American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) guidelines.

Further information about BioIVT’s new UK-based product lines is available at https://hubs.ly/H0ngR8G0.