February 9, 2023

First shipment of Egyptian plasma arrives in Spain for manufacturing into medicines

The first shipment of plasma from Grifols Egypt has reached Spain, where it will be manufactured into lifesaving plasma medicines to treat Egyptian patients.

Increasing amounts of Egyptian plasma will arrive in Barcelona regularly as part of the landmark agreement that Grifols signed with Egypt’s National Service Projects Organization in November 2020. The resulting joint venture, Grifols Egypt for Plasma Derivatives, is currently building the world’s very first integrated plasma infrastructure, including donation centers throughout Egypt as well as plasma fractionation and purification plants, plus testing and warehouse operations, in the New Administrative Capital’s medical city.

This is the first time plasma from outside North America or Europe will be fractionated in Grifols’ installations in Parets del Vallès (Barcelona). Under the terms of the game-changing alliance, the Parets plant will produce plasma medicines for export back to Egypt through the end of 2025, when the in-country manufacturing site is expected to be operational.

In 2022, approximately 2,000 qualified Egyptian donors provided around 10,000 donations, which will yield tens of thousands of grams of plasma medicines including immunoglobulins and albumin in addition to hundreds of thousands of international units of blood-clotting factors.