Plasma is labelled liquid gold, but it's worth more than that

The US is currently topping up New Zealand's supplies of a vital blood product, but if we had more plasma donors we could be self-sufficient

Demand for life-saving plasma is growing at such a rate that New Zealand is falling further and further behind on its supplies, forcing it to pay millions of dollars every year for immunoglobulin from America, one of the few countries that pays people to donate.

Plasma is the yellow liquid component of blood that is needed to help the body recover from injury, distribute nutrients, remove waste and prevent infection. It is used to treat up to 50 illnesses, including cancer and autoimmune diseases. Immunoglobulin is a key protein in plasma.

New Zealand hospitals rely on donors - around 17,500 of them - who give plasma on a regular basis through the national blood service, Te Ratonga Toto O Aotearoa. It amounts to several tonnes a year but it is well short of what's needed.

NZ Blood's transfusion medicine specialist, Dr Richard Charlewood says New Zealand is at a tipping point.

"Unless we can get our plasma donation numbers up we're going to get further and further behind. That's not good for us in a financial sense, in that we have to buy plasma from other countries, it's not good for us from a self sufficiency perspective.

"When Covid hit and donation numbers went down in the United States they made it very clear to the world that it is a United States-first policy," he says.

That means the US will not run out of intravenous immunoglobulin for itself - it will simply stop providing to other countries.

"As a small country with a small value contract we would probably be dropped fairly quickly," Dr Charlewood says.

It is called liquid gold because immunoglobulin is more valuable than gold. The global market for plasma is estimated to be worth more than $50 billion, rising to $75 billion by 2027. The US profits most from the global market because it is responsible for 70 percent of all the plasma on the world blood market.

Immunoglobulin or antibodies is one of several proteins contained in plasma, along with albumin and clotting factors. The immunoglobulins are in hot demand because they defend the body from infections, viruses and cancer cells. Dr Charlewood says New Zealand is not alone in its struggle to collect enough plasma to meet growing patient need for immunoglobulin.

Peter Jaworski of Georgetown University in the US has gathered the data on the few countries that are self sufficient on plasma and those that aren't, like New Zealand and Australia…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details