Biopure

Biopure Corporation was a biopharmaceutical company that specialized in oxygen therapeutics for both human and veterinary use. The company developed, manufactured, and marketed oxygen therapeutics, designed to transport oxygen to the body's tissues. The oxygen technology uses hemoglobin-based oxygen carrying molecules in solution (HBOCs) to increase oxygen transfer to the tissues. The competing companies with Biopure were 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 ceased operations in 2009 and its assets were purchased by OPK Biotech LLC in September of 2009. On July 16, 2009 Biopure announced it had filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code and entered into an agreement with OPK Biotech LLC for the sale of substantially all of its assets .