Plasma-derived therapies and the fight against COVID-19

Patrick Delavault, executive vice president, scientific & medical affairs, LFB Biopharmaceuticals, provides an Expert View on how the pandemic has led to a focus on an important medicinal option for patients.

In 2020, we saw several leading biopharmaceutical companies combine forces in the search for therapeutic solutions to fight the current global pandemic. Little may be known about plasma-derived therapies in the world at large, but the COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on this form of treatment and highlighted its wider uses in everyday medicine.

Plasma-derived medicinal products and recombinant proteins are typically used to treat rare, serious, genetic, and — in many cases — life-threatening diseases caused by defective immune systems or by missing or non-functioning proteins typically found in blood plasma. These include autoimmune disorders and inherited disorders of hemostasis. Plasma-derived therapies also play an important role in emergency medicine.