Synthetic Blood International, Inc has signed an agreement to lease space for a research office in the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park, located in Richmond, VA.

This space will be used to coordinate research between the company and sponsored researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Reanimation Engineering Shock Center (VCURES). A number of pre-clinical and clinical projects utilizing Oxycyte are presently underway and others are planned at Vcures. Oxycyte is the company's perfluorocarbon (PFC) therapeutic oxygen carrier and blood substitute.

"The offices at the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park will further support and enhance the growth of new technologies from the laboratory bench to the patient bedside," said company chairman and CEO Chris J. Stern, DBA. "While strengthening our development activities with researchers at Vcures, this amazing opportunity comes at a very favourable cost/benefit ratio. It will actually help us to preserve money because expenses to coordinate that research will decrease".

Dr Bruce Spiess, MD is Virginia Commonwealth University Professor of Anaesthesiology and Emergency Medicine, Director of Research (Anaesthesiology) and director of Vcures. He is also on the company's board of directors. "It is my hope that the relationship between the company and VCU will grow closer and more vital in the future as a result of this new research presence and that it will lead to improved ways to deliver oxygen in critical illness and injury," said Dr Spiess. "I'm very excited about this development and what it might mean for the company's future." Dr Spiess is the co-chair of the company's Scientific Advisory Board and has been conducting clinical trials using Oxycyte in the treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury patients.

"It's especially exciting to us when a company working with VCU joins the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park because of the role the university has played in the Park's creation and growth. We welcome Synthetic Blood International as it joins more than 55 other life science organizations located in the Research Park," said Robert T. Skunda, president and CEO of the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park.