(Reuters) – Britain’s medicines regulator on Monday lifted a ban on using blood plasma from UK-based donors for deriving albumin, which is used in critically ill patients to replace blood loss from severe injuries and treat diseases like sepsis.
The ban on plasma-derived medicinal products in the UK was imposed in 1999 as a safety precaution against the spread of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD) – a rare, rapidly worsening brain disorder.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said following further review of the evidence, the Commission on Human Medicines – an independent working group advising UK ministers – had also recommended lifting the ban.
The state-run national health service (NHS) has relied exclusively on imported plasma-derived products, primarily from the United States because of the ban.
A ban on using UK donor plasma to make immunoglobulins, another type of plasma-derived medicinal product was lifted in 2020.
(Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)