Biopure begins shipping, marketing of Hemopure in South Africa after hiring new sales agent

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, Jan. 4 - Biopure Corp. said Wednesday that it has complied with new import regulations and shipped product to South Africa to support the start of marketing and sales for its room-temperature-stable oxygen therapeutic Hemopure [hemoglobin glutamer - 250 (bovine)].

In 2005, Biopure acquired control of the registration for Hemopure in South Africa, selected a warehousing and shipping agent and appointed as its sales agent Abazali Bio Ventures Ltd., a new company formed to sell biotechnology products in the region, according to a company news release.

The chief executive of Abazali Bio Ventures is the former general manager of a large, multinational American pharmaceutical company in South Africa.

Sales representatives are being trained to start calling on medical providers, officials said.

The product is approved in South Africa for the treatment of adult surgical patients who are acutely anemic and for the purpose of eliminating, delaying or reducing the need for allogenic red blood cell transfusions in these patients, officials said.

"We've implemented a new support structure in South Africa and resolved the issues that previously prevented us from offering the product for sale," Biopure president and chief executive officer Zafiris G. Zafirelis said in the release.

"The information we gain about how doctors perceive and use the product should facilitate our planning for larger markets and our development of other potential indications," he added.

"Since approval, over 350 patients in South Africa have received Hemopure we previously provided without charge as part of our medical education program," said Zafirelis in the release. "We plan to initially target the medical providers who've used or been trained to use the product as part of that program."

Biopure, based in Cambridge, Mass., develops, manufactures and markets pharmaceuticals, called oxygen therapeutics, that are intravenously administered to deliver oxygen to the body's tissues.

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