Biopureとは 意味・読み方・使い方

Biopure Corporation was a biopharmaceutical company that specialized in oxygen therapeutics for both human and veterinary use. The company developed, manufactured, and marketed blood substitutes which are designed to imitate the oxygen-carrying function of actual blood without the complications associated with transfusion of human donated blood. The oxygen technology uses hemoglobin-based oxygen carrying molecules in solution (HBOCs) to increase oxygen transfer to the tissues. The competing companies with Biopure are Allied Pharmaceutical, Northfield Laboratories, Baxter International and Hemosol of Toronto. The company developed two products: Hemopure (HBOC-1) [hemoglogin glutamer-250 (bovine)] for human use, and Oxyglobin (HBOC-301) [hemoglobin glutamer-200 (bovine)] for veterinary use. As of April 2001, Hemopure was approved for commercial sale in South Africa for treatment of acute anemia in general surgery. However, Hemopure has not been able to gain approval in the U.K. or the U.S. because of safety and reliability concerns of the European Commission and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) respectively. The company formed an agreement with the U.S. Navy to aid in preclinical testing of Hemopure for out-of-hospital treatment of trauma patients in hemorrhagic shock. Oxyglobin is the only oxygen therapeutic approved for treatment of canine anemia in both Europe and the U.S. and has treated thousands of cases. Unable to obtain FDA approval for Hemopure to date, Biopure expected "to cease operations and sell the Company or its assets" by July 31, 2009. On July 16, 2009 Biopure announced it had filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and entered into an agreement with OPK Biotech LLC for the sale of substantially all of its assets .