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A former health minister has warned that the sale of a UK blood plasma company to a US private equity firm endangers the supply of life-saving products to the NHS.
Lord Hunt, Labour's health spokesman in the Lords and who oversaw the UK's purchase of the company in 2002, described the deal as "too risky". Patient groups also fear that the sale could harm health service provision in the UK.
The government announced last month that it had sold Plasma Resources UK to Bain Capital, the private equity firm accused during the US presidential elections of moving US jobs abroad.
Plasma Resources UK (PRUK) turns plasma, the fluid in blood that holds white and red cellsin suspension, into life-saving treatments for immune deficiencies, neurological diseases and haemophilia. Since 2002, all plasma has been collected from US donors because of the theoretical risk of contamination with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of BSE, which cannot be reliably tested for.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/aug/25/uk-blood-plasma-company-sale-nhs-supplies
Lord Hunt, Labour's health spokesman in the Lords and who oversaw the UK's purchase of the company in 2002, described the deal as "too risky". Patient groups also fear that the sale could harm health service provision in the UK.
The government announced last month that it had sold Plasma Resources UK to Bain Capital, the private equity firm accused during the US presidential elections of moving US jobs abroad.
Plasma Resources UK (PRUK) turns plasma, the fluid in blood that holds white and red cellsin suspension, into life-saving treatments for immune deficiencies, neurological diseases and haemophilia. Since 2002, all plasma has been collected from US donors because of the theoretical risk of contamination with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of BSE, which cannot be reliably tested for.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/aug/25/uk-blood-plasma-company-sale-nhs-supplies