Drugmaker opens doors to patients

Talecris shows off its plasma-based medicines with annual open houses

When Kris McFalls toured Talecris Biotherapeutics' operations last week in Raleigh and Clayton, she saw several familiar faces. It was a reassuring sign for the mother of two boys who both take medicine made at the Clayton plant.

"That [low turnover] to me is always a sign of a good company," she said.

McFalls, who is a patient advocate from the Seattle area, first visited the Clayton plant five years ago. Concerned with drug safety, McFalls said she switched both of her boys, who have an immune disorder, to Talecris' Gamunex after that visit because it was "the newest and safest on the market."

Drugmakers usually limit tours, especially of their manufacturing plants, to avoid contamination risks. That's particularly true for Talecris, whose products are made from donated blood plasma and are geared toward people whose disorders make them vulnerable to infections.

But the company also has reason to hold annual open houses.

"Target marketing and patient days fit us better," spokeswoman Wendy Wilson said.

Talecris avoids mass advertising on television or in popular magazines, because its customers are small groups of patients with rare diseases, including various immune disorders, hemophilia and severe blood loss. Instead, the Research Triangle Park company relies on occasional ads in medical journals and word of mouth that spreads in tight-knit patient communities.

So last week it held its third open house. About 50 patients, relatives and patient advocates from the United States and Canada accepted Talecris' all-expenses-paid invitation to tour its plant and plasma collection center.

The tour coincided with Talecris' planned acquisition by a larger Australian rival. As the $3.1 billion sale is pending, it is important for the company to keep patients from switching to competitors' products.

Wilson wouldn't say how much Talecris spent for the event, only that it was less than $100,000 -- a cost clearly offset by the price of treatment, which can be as much as $40,000 a year.

To emphasize its attention to drug safety, Talecris had Doug Lee, senior director for pathogen safety, and Mary Kuhn, head of its manufacturing operations, talk about the elaborate measures that the company takes to screen out plasma contaminated with viruses that cause AIDS and hepatitis.

At Talecris' testing lab in Raleigh, more than 3.5 million plasma samples are screened every year, Lee said.

One in 40,000 samples contains HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, he said. At least one in 7,000 samples is contaminated with a hepatitis virus.

Unacceptable samples are destroyed.

Further measures to inactivate viruses are taken at the Talecris plant in Clayton, which with about 1,600 employees is one of the largest of its kind, and a smaller facility on Long Island, Kuhn said. Also, plant employees must suit up in multiple layers, head to toe, to prevent bacterial contamination as they pool the blood plasma in large vats and make paste from it.

Owning the source

But the best way to make sure the medicines are free of viruses, Kuhn said, is to own blood plasma collection centers.

After buying a chain of collection centers from a former supplier two years ago, Talecris now runs 59 of them. Two centers, one in Durham and one in Fayetteville, were shut down because of problems, including sewage backing up, said Bruce Nogales, the executive who oversees Talecris Plasma Resources.

The company plans to continue to expand its collection capabilities to boost sales, Nogales said. A new contract Talecris recently signed with a large supplier means "we don't have to push as hard," he said. "But it's a matter of degree. We still have to collect a lot more plasma next year than this year."

For the visiting patients, Talecris' plasma collection center in Raleigh also proved to be special.

Patty Tew, 53, of Orlando, Fla., who has taken Talecris' Prolastin for an immune disorder for nearly two years, chatted with James Monroe, 46, of Raleigh, as Monroe's blood circled through a machine that separated white and red blood cells from the plasma.

Monroe has been donating blood or blood plasma twice a week for 28 years, because as a medical assistant he has seen how it helps patients.

The $25 or $30 donors get paid per donation also might help them buy gas or groceries, Tew said. "But what they're doing isn't demeaning. They're saving my life. Without [the donated plasma], I would die."