Here comes the Vampires!! Bain Capital buys stake in UK government blood company

The government has sold an 80% stake in blood products company Plasma Resources UK to a US private equity firm.

Bain Capital paid £230m for the majority stake in the company, which supplies the NHS with treatments for haemophilia and immune deficiencies.

It said it would transform PRUK into "a UK-based life sciences champion".

But former Health Minister Lord Owen said sensitive health assets should not be owned by a firm without shareholders and "answerability".

Plasma is a straw-coloured blood component that acts as a clotting agent.

It is not sourced from UK donors, on medical advice since the emergence of "mad cow disease", but is imported from a US-based company.

Investment needed

Plasma Resources UK turns it into life-saving treatments, some of which are supplied to the US, and others sold outside the UK. It is not connected to the National Blood Service, which blood donors supply.

The government announced plans to sell it off in January, saying private sector investment was needed to "support the company and its employees in the next phase of the company's development".

[link to www.bbc.co.uk]