Cerus Corporation has entered into a collaborative agreement with France's national transfusion service, the Etablissement Francais du Sang (EFS), for the development of the company's Intercept Blood System for red blood cells. Terms of the agreement call for the EFS to co-invest by contributing its facilities, personnel and resources in support of clinical and commercial product development, validation, and both CE mark and French regulatory approvals. In return, EFS has certain royalty rights on future product revenue. The EFS plans to conduct the collaboration at four regional EFS establishments in France, with candidate locations including Strasbourg, Besancon, St-Etienne, Tours, Montpelier, and Marseille.

"Cerus welcomes this opportunity to collaborate with a leading national transfusion service as we advance the Intercept red blood cell program into the European market," said Claes Glassell, president and CEO of Cerus. "Our experience commercializing the Intercept platelet and plasma systems has shown us the value of working directly with our future potential customers, such as EFS, to establish the safety, efficacy and operational requirements of new pathogen inactivation technologies."

The EFS supplies blood components for metropolitan France as well as the overseas departments of La Reunion, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Guyane. Supporting the needs of over one million patients each year, EFS blood centers annually produce approximately 260 thousand units of platelets, 370 thousand units of plasma and 2.3 million units of red blood cells for transfusion. All plasma for transfusion in France is routinely pathogen inactivated, and four regions have already implemented pathogen inactivation of platelets.

"This is an important project for the EFS, building on our scientific and research expertise to collaborate as a public establishment with industry to advance blood safety in the world," said Gerard Tobelem, president of the EFS. "This is an important step leading towards a future where hopefully all labile blood components will be secured with pathogen inactivation technologies."

Cerus has previously announced Intercept red blood cell collaborations with the German Red Cross in Frankfurt, Germany as well as Laboratories Grifols of Spain. The red cell pre-clinical development program has received support from the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command under contract number W81XWH-08-1-0480. Cerus recently announced the successful conclusion of its phase-1 red cell trial, clearing the way for future development of the Intercept red blood cell program.

Cerus Corporation is a biomedical products company focused on commercializing the Intercept Blood System to enhance blood safety.