ANN ARBOR — Blaze Medical Devices, an Ann Arbor-based company developing new blood analysis technologies, announced that it has begun offering blood fragility analysis services for pharmaceutical and medical device companies.
Developers of drugs and blood-contacting devices often need to assess the impacts of their products on red blood cell membranes to evaluating their products’ safety and efficacy. This generally includes looking at levels of hemolysis – red blood cell rupture – but Blaze officials say that fails to reflect any “hidden” or sub-hemolytic cell damage.
Blaze’s proprietary technology solves this problem by measuring RBC mechanical fragility – a more precise metric of blood damage than simple hemolysis. It’s also an important parameter in calibrating for hemolysis measurements. While Blaze is developing its first fully integrated and automated Fragilimeter system for academic and industrial research customers, it also now offers RBC mechanical fragility testing on a service contract basis.
“This move was in direct response to industry demand and highlights industry interest in exploiting the advantages of this metric,” said Blaze CEO David Weaver. “Our first contract began in late 2014. Since then, we expanded our service capacity and signed our second customer, with more contracts in negotiation.”
More at www.blazemedicaldevices.com.