The report is available in English with a French summary - KCE

KCE Reports 120 Plasma 27
• 73% of plasma delivered to LFB stems from traditional whole blood
technique.
• 27% from other techniques: plasmapheresis, combined apheresis, and
mixed platelets concentrates (MPC).
Cost control and EFS processes
Costs Issues
As mentioned above the EFS has to reach very demanding delivery targets, under strict
constraints, especially unilateral sale prices fixing by the Departement of Health.
Therefore, the EFS is compelled to deliver an increasing volume of blood to LFB 630
000 liters in 2006; 1,1 Millions liters scheduled for 2011.
The main problems for EFS managers are obviously to ensure overall financial balance of
collection activities, but also to avoid discrepancies between the collection costs of
blood and plasma. One of main driver for EFS’s decision makers is to cut down
apherese plasma production costs, step by step, thanks to an increased collection of
actually collected plasma and a rationalization of collection techniques.
DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN APHERESE PLASMA AND RECOVERED PLASMA
In 2007, around 20% of plasma comes from apherese plasma whereas 80% remains
recovered plasma. The objective of the EFS is to raise the share of apherese plama over
the next year, for technical reasons (mainly increased frequency of donations).
Frequency of donation is all the more important as the proportion of donors in the
French population remains low (around 4% of the overall population). However, one
must bear in mind that cost breakdown between apherese plasma and recovered
plasma remains very different:
• Costs of Apherese Plasma
• 58% connected with collection step
• 42% connected with processing, vigilance, and quality-control
• Costs of Recovered Plasma
• 22% connected with collection step
• 78% connected with processing, vigilance, and quality-control
Hence, this policy will call for specific efforts and rationalization of the collection step
itself as it accounts for the major part of the costs mentioned above. Rationalization can
be understood as a systematic use of accurate processes and techniques, but also a
better use of human resources, as described below.
CLINICAL PRACTICES AND HUMAN RESOURCES
Volume of individual donations
Across the country, clinical practices remain uneven, in the field of blood and plasma
collection. As a practical matter, the volume of individual plasma collection may vary
across donation centres and regions. Over the next years, one of the key issues (from a
purely technical point of view) is to make sure that field practices are in line with official
requirements set out by the EFS, and to standardize these practices. By doing so, the
volume of individual collection could be raised significantly.
Plasmapherese techniques
Until now, 60% of apherese is performed is as a simple apherese and 40% is performed
with an additive solution. Three measures will be implemented over the next years to
maximize and to standardize the rentability of plasmapherese techniques:
• The more intensive use of MPC as additive solutions
• The automation of the production of the MPC