Grifols to provide Korean Red Cross with Procleix Panther for blood screening, extending donor testing leadership in Asia

Barcelona, Spain, June 3, 2021 - Grifols (MCE: GRF, MCE: GRF.P, NASDAQ: GRFS), a global leader in the development of plasma-derived therapies and innovative diagnostic solutions, today announced it will provide the Korean Red Cross (KRC) with its industry-leading Procleix Panther System running nucleic acid testing (NAT) technology to help ensure the safety of South Korea’s blood supply.

As part of the KRC contract, Grifols will deliver 28 Procleix Panther Systems that will be deployed during the following months across the humanitarian organization’s three laboratory sites in South Korea. When fully operational, they will test about 94% of the country’s blood donations, which are needed mostly for transfusions.

The Procleix Panther Systems are known for their reliability, scalability and versatility, providing high throughput with a small footprint while streamlining laboratory workflow. They will feature the Procleix Ultrio Elite Assay, a high-specificity NAT designed to improve blood safety by detecting the potential existence of the most important infectious pathogens in a single, simultaneous test from human serum or plasma.

“Increasingly countries in the Asia-Pacific region are relying on the innovative, robust and efficient screening capabilities of the Procleix Panther System to protect their blood supplies,” said David Dew, President, Grifols Diagnostic Commercial Division. “The combination of Grifols quality, safety and cutting-edge technology is making an important difference in enhancing the health and well-being of patients.”

Grifols has steadily increased its transfusion safety leadership in Asia-Pacific, where it currently screens more than half of all blood donations, including 100% of those in Australia, Japan, Malaysia and New Zealand.

Grifols Korea, formed in 2020, is the company’s most recent affiliate in Asia-Pacific, where it has grown to 13 subsidiaries after first establishing its presence in the region in 2000. China, where Grifols has a strategic alliance with Shanghai RAAS, a leader in the country’s plasma-derivatives sector, is one of the company’s most important markets in sales of Procleix NAT solutions.

About the Procleix Panther System

The Procleix Panther System automates all aspects of NAT (Nucleic Acid Testing)-based blood screening on a single, integrated platform, and is capable of delivering the highest result throughput per square meter. It eliminates the need for batch processing and combines walk-away freedom with intuitive design for ease of use.

About Procleix NAT Solutions

Today, Procleix systems are used to screen more blood donations around the world than any other NAT blood screening products, and include tests for HIV, hepatitis viruses (A, B, C and E), West Nile virus, SARS-CoV-2*, Zika virus, Dengue virus, Babesia, and more.

About Procleix Ultrio Elite Assay

The Procleix Ultrio Elite Assay is a nucleic acid test (NAT) that uses magnetic-based target capture, Transcription-Mediated Amplification (TMA) and chemiluminescence to detect HIV-1, HIV-2, HBV and HCV in serum or plasma of donated blood. Because of the high sensitivity and specificity of the technology, detection of the targeted pathogens can be achieved within the early stages of infection, thereby helping to prevent infected blood or blood components from being transfused even when the donor does not exhibit symptoms and traditional serological screening techniques are not able to detect the presence of the pathogen or antibodies against it. The assay runs on the Procleix Panther System, a fully automated NAT instrument launched by Grifols in the EU market in 2012 and currently widely used in laboratories globally.

*In development. Performance characteristics have not been established.