Global Blood Demand Increases Despite Dropping Transfusion Rates At Home, Online Blood Suppliers Answer Call

Globally, blood products and services are in high demand, and the industry is on trend to continue growing. According to the 2015 BCC Healthcare Report, global sales of blood products grew from around $28.7 billion in 2013 to $30.2 billion in 2014, an increase of $1.5 billion. And the report predicts that the market will grow another 4.9% from 2014 to 2019, totaling $38.3 billion in 2019.

To meet the growing global demand, the industry is turning its sights on emerging markets such as online suppliers of blood products and services. And online marketplaces such as BioMarketplace.com are stepping up to the plate.

BioMarketplace.com’s growing catalog of markets serve the blood, biotech, and life science related industries, but it is the platform’s BIO Blood Exchange which connects those who need blood products with industry-leading blood centers that supply popular and rare blood products for transfusion and other clinical purposes, as well as suppliers of patient blood sample cohorts for research.

Worldwide efforts to increase the blood supply of impoverished third-world countries is driving much of the industry’s global growth. And given increasing concerns about infectious diseases that spread through blood, these efforts often include improving blood safety education and quality control in the same areas.

Products such as the INTERCEPT Blood System, a new FDA approved technology, are helping to enhance the safety of global blood supplies. INTERCEPT works by deactivating various viruses, bacteria, spirochetes, parasites, and leukocytes in treated blood components, significantly lowering the risk of transfusion-transmitted infection from treated blood components. Moreover, BioMarketplace.com’s Lab and Research Services market hosts online stores of industry vendors who offer services such as blood testing and quality control solutions, as well as screening technologies and more.

Even as new products and solutions for improving the quality and availability of the global blood supply continue to hit the market, there are still many problems facing the industry, especially in the U.S., where medical advancements have all but eliminated the need for blood transfusions – dwindling the number of transfusions in 2015 by the millions, to about 11 million units in 2015, down from about 15 million units, according to the American Red Cross. This accounts for close to 40 percent of the current market and poses a significant problem for blood centers. According to ProPublica, the Red Cross posted a deficit of $159 million in the last fiscal year with the blood-banking division having lost a reported $71 million. These drops suggest that it may be a good time for industry-leading blood centers (or any blood center, really) to put plans in place for developing cost-effective blood solutions, or at the very least, plan for how to bring in more income despite declining transfusion rates.

Where the U.S. blood industry goes from here is uncertain as transfusions continue to decline. Luckily, online retailers such as BioMarketplace.com can help. By hosting a store on BioMarketplace.com, blood centers can increase their market reach and earning potential without those pesky geographic borders posing too many logistics issues.