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Biopure

Biopure Corporation was a biopharmaceutical company that specialized in oxygen therapeutics (blood substitutes) for both human and veterinary use. The company developed, manufactured, and marketed oxygen therapeutics, designed to transport oxygen to the body's tissues. The oxygen technology uses hemoglobin-based oxygen carrying molecules in solution (HBOCs) to increase oxygen transfer to the tissues.2 It was founded in 1984.1 It is headquartered in Cambridge.1 Its chief executive is Zafiris G. Zafirelis.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1984Founded1

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Biopure Corporation was a biopharmaceutical company that specialized in oxygen therapeutics (blood substitutes) for both human and veterinary use. The company developed, manufactured, and marketed oxygen therapeutics, designed to transport oxygen to the body's tissues. The oxygen technology uses hemoglobin-based oxygen carrying molecules in solution (HBOCs) to increase oxygen transfer to the tissues. The competing companies with Biopure were Allied Pharmaceutical, Northfield Laboratories, Baxter International and Hemosol of Toronto. The company developed two products: Hemopure (HBOC-1) [hemoglobin glutamer-250 (bovine)] for human use, and Oxyglobin (HBOC-301) [hemoglobin glutamer-200 (bovine)] for veterinary use. In April 2001, Hemopure was approved for commercial sale in South Africa for treatment of acute anemia in general surgery. It is currently approved there and in Russia. However, Hemopure has not been able to gain approval in the U.K. or the U.S. because of safety and reliability concerns of the European Commission and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) respectively. The company formed an agreement with the U.S. Navy to aid in preclinical testing of Hemopure for out-of-hospital treatment of trauma patients in hemorrhagic shock. Oxyglobin is the only oxygen therapeutic approved for treatment of canine anemia in both Europe and the U.S. and has been used in treatment for thousands of cases. Unable to obtain FDA approval for Hemopure to date, Biopure ceased operations in 2009 and its assets were purchased by OPK Biotech LLC in September 2009. On July 16, 2009 Biopure announced it had filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code and entered into an agreement with OPK Biotech LLC for the sale of substantially all of its assets. It in turn went bankrupt and "Hemoglobin Oxygen Therapeutics LLC was organized in February 2014 in connection with the acquisition of OPK Biotech." Through it, Hemopure is still available under FDA’s Expanded access Program (EAP).2

The story

Founding

Dr. Bing L. Wong and Mr. Carl W. Rausch co-founded Biopure Fine Chemicals in 1984, some months later renamed to Biopure Corporation. At Tufts New England Enzyme Center in Boston, Massachusetts, Bing and Carl were working on a new concept of making biologicals and in the process of creating a new company. Jim Judelson then challenged them to make a sizeable quantity of haemoglobin solution from cattle. The deal was that if they could make the solution within one week and the solution could be infused into a rabbit and caused no deaths, they would be given USD 500,000 to Biopure Fine Chemicals to start up the company. Based on their hands-on experience in dealing with bovine blood and using their connections with several slaughter houses within the region, Bing, Carl and Ted Jocobs collected the bovine blood early the next morning and worked carefully for the entire week. In the end, they sent 4 litres of purified bovine haemoglobin solution to the designated laboratory via FedEx. On the 3rd Friday morning in November 1984, Christina Poulos (Bing's secretary) handed a FedEx envelope to Bing containing a USD 500,000 cheque. This was the beginning of Biopure.

Product strategy

For Hemopure, Biopure took a long time to establish which medical indication upon which to focus the majority of its attention. This can be seen through its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as the company changed Hemopure’s marketing and approval strategies over the seven years that the company was publicly traded.

In contrast, its Oxyglobin product enjoyed a fairly steady strategy, as Biopure consistently marketed the product mostly to small animal veterinarians. Unfortunately the small market size made turning a profit, especially ex-US, difficult.

From Wikipedia’s article on Biopure, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Leadership

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Timeline

  1. 1984Founded Founded1

Sources

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