In recent years, a number of products have been introduced to treat hemophilia, which promise “increased competition to plasma-derived coagulation factors,” according to the Marketing Research Bureau, an Orange, Conn.-based trade group. From extraction to administration of plasma-derived medicine takes between nine months and a year, Mr. The amount collected at any one center varies “depending on community engagement,” Grifols spokesman Colin Seal said.įresh plasma is frozen within 30 minutes of being drawn, loaded into refrigerated tractor-trailers and shipped to processing centers, where it’s held for 60 days before it’s thawed and proteins are separated for medicines. North America leads the world in plasma collection - extracting 42.3 million units from human suppliers in 2017, up from 10.3 million units in 2004, according to the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association, a trade group based in Annapolis, Md.īoca Raton, Fla.-based CSL Plasma, which runs the McKeesport center, is also growing - with six centers planned for Pennsylvania this year, including ones in Homestead and Penn Hills. Worldwide, the company has 200 collection centers and plans to open 30 to 35 more this year, CEO Paul Perreault said. The commercial industry grew steadily and then really took off in recent years - driven by expanding uses for plasma, increased need for an aging population worldwide, and a rising number of registered patients with blood-clotting disorders. Cohn became something of a celebrity by the end of the war. One of those proteins, albumin - administered intravenously - was used to treat burns and shock caused by blood loss on the battlefield. Plasma is the liquid part of blood and Harvard biochemist Edwin Cohn found a way to separate proteins out. The $21 billion plasma industry was born about the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The connection suggests that for some men, aging and financial insecurity may be linked - and selling plasma can offer some relief. Men in their peak earning years of 55 to 64 deliver more plasma than women or any other age group, according to a trade group. Gutierrez-Faust said, “if you’re not scared of needles.” Listening to music or watching television during plasma extraction really isn’t so bad, he said. “There’s nothing hard,” Mr. Laughing, he calls the earnings “my blood money.”
He also likes to treat himself to occasional movies at the local discount theater.
He uses the money to enjoy a meal out now and then - Golden Corral restaurant is a favorite. Retired McKeesport contractor Dave Gutierrez-Faust, 65, goes to the Grifols SA collection center in Penn Hills the maximum allowable eight times a month. Without the money, the 57-year-old said, “I’d be short.”
Selling his fluids also means having cash to get his teeth cleaned, change the oil in his car, and buy chicken and steak rather than baloney, he said. One day he’d like to play at church services. Parks, whose day job is driving a shuttle bus, saved two months of his plasma money to buy a digital Yamaha piano. Selling plasma is also part of a weekly routine for Nathaniel Parks, who lives in the basement of a rambling personal care home in Wilkinsburg. And it helps cover the cost of groceries and gas. The money helps pay private school tuition for his 10-year-old daughter. If he makes all his appointments, he is paid about $300 a month. When it’s over, after about a quart of liquid has been collected, he’ll drive home to sleep. The red blood cells are returned to his vein through the tubing in a repeating cycle that lasts about an hour. A needle is inserted into an arm vein, followed by a plastic catheter attached to clear tubing.īlood flows into a spinning centrifuge that separates the straw-colored plasma from red blood cells.
Wickler, 40, a Lawrenceville resident and single father of two, relaxes in a comfortable chair while a technician tightens a tourniquet around his upper arm. He works the night shift at an Etna machine shop.Īt the collection center, Mr. in McKeesport is a regular stop for Dan Wickler after dropping off his kids at school. Three collection centers have opened in the Pittsburgh area in recent years and more are on the way as the push and pull of everyday economics overcomes the ick factor of blood and needles.ĬSL Plasma Inc. The thing about selling plasma is how routine the whole thing has become, like morning coffee or birthday cake with the grandkids.