Selection criteria may be adjusted at the request of the customer depending on the intended use of the product and the customer’s requirements, provided that subject safety requirements are met. At the customer’s request, subjects with a history of travel or medication ingestion that would preclude them from providing a blood product suitable for transfusion may provide whole blood for non-clinical and non-injectable uses.

Subjects may donate as often as once every eight weeks and up to six times in any 12-month period.

Subjects are usually prescreened prior to product collection for evidence of transmissible infectious diseases with the standard panel of tests used to screen blood products for transfusion acceptability. This panel of tests is usually repeated with each collected product.

Whole blood units are collected into a standard blood bag system used for collection of whole blood for transfusion and containing CPDA-1 anticoagulant. Platelets are produced by centrifugation without disrupting the closed system in which the whole blood was collected.

Specific subjects may be selected from our database based on:

• Blood type
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Human Leukocyte Antigen phenotype
• Human Platelet Antigen genotype

Optional pre-collection qualification screening is available:

• Cell counts
• Anti-HLA Class I or Class II antibodies screen
• Recent medication usage

Optional post-collection release screening is available:

• Platelet count and/or other cell fraction yield
• Weight and/or volume

Packaging and Shipment

In alignment with the intended use of the product and the customer’s requirements, platelets may be packaged and shipped on the date of collection for overnight delivery.

Products are packaged in a manner that ensures maintenance of a temperature between 20°C and 24°C during shipment, unless the customer specifies an alternative method. Lifeblood Biological Services uses the Golden Hour^® Platelet Shipper for shipment of these products, unless an alternative method is specified by the customer.

Continuous temperature monitoring data tracking devices are available for use at the customer’s request.

• Mean: 9.3x10¹⁰
• Range: 6.6 – 12.0x10¹⁰