[rockfishroll]

Biopure was a company doing something similar in the US. They imploded in the early 2000s, but they had created an "oxygen therapeutic" (blood substitute) by isolating hemoglobin based oxygen carrying molecules FROM COW BLOOD!

The fact that they weren't using whole red blood cells meant the product was typeless, room temp stable, and better at perfusing around arterial blockages and into tissue since the molecules were so small.

Unfortunately, the company was kind of a mess. They managed to get licensed for sale in South Africa, and in the US for the veterinary product, but never managed FDA approval. It's a shame. Everyone could see the promise of the product, and it really actually worked, but they just couldn't seem to make the business viable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopure

Edit: When I say they imploded, I really mean it. They got prosecuted for misleading statements to investors about the state of US clinical trials, and the legal proceedings became farcical.

"On March 11, 2009 [Senior VP] Howard Richman pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court and admitted he had instructed his lawyers to tell a judge he was gravely ill with colon cancer. He also admitted to posing as his doctor in a phone call with his lawyer so that she would tell the judge that his cancer had spread and that he was undergoing chemotherapy."

That guys was sentenced to 3 years in prison. Here's hoping this new blood substitute has a happier outcome!

[rockfishroll]

One more anecdote. WADA, the World Anti Doping Agency, had to specifically address using hemoglobin based blood substitutes for doping.

https://www.wada-ama.org/en/resources/scientific-research/de...

This class of products is room temperatures stable, and typeless, and it increases oxygen carrying capacity basically immediately. You can imagine how useful that would be for something like a Tour De France team. Keep a half dozen units of fake blood in your team bus. No special equipment. No rigorous temp control. You can give any unit to any one of your athletes without worrying about compatibility. You can administer it on race day, eliminating any chance of being caught in the runup to your event.

Obviously Biopure condemned off-label use of their product for blood doping, but behind closed doors they were super proud that it was seen as effective enough to be called out by name by WADA. No publicity is bad publicity and all that.

[steveBK123]

They didn't lost long enough to be an official sponsor & exclusive partner of the Thiel backed doping games.

[HappyJoy]

What happens to the IP when this happens? If the product works but wasn't supported by the right company how does it not get picked up by someone more competent?

[dlcarrier]

You wait 20 years, then work on it once the patents have expired. This happens to lots of technologies, which aren't properly license while under patent protection, then take off once the protection expires.

Probably the most well known is animated GIFs, which had some popularity in early web pages, but quickly died off, then had a huge upsurge after the patent expired in the 2000's, when anyone could add animated GIF outputs to any program or web service, without licensing.

[MobiusHorizons]

I would imagine the IP was sold, especially if there was bankruptcy.

[ConradKilroy]

I fondly remember trying to angel invest in BioPure, thank you for the flashback!

[Nursie]

How well did that one work?

There was another one in the US called "PolyHeme" which did not go well - https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=PolyHeme

The controversy around that one was not only that it did not work as well as it could (more patients had heart attacks than with saline), but that it was trialled on trauma patients without their explicit consent - implied consent was used, and people in trial areas could opt-out by requesting a bracelet. Problematic to say the least...

[kylehotchkiss]

They just pumped like straight hemoglobin in the blood and it worked? No antibody response? They didn’t just like fall apart? Creative. I like it.