Oleolive Inc was awarded funding from the Department of Defense to develop freeze dried platelets for reducing blood loss in wounded special operations warfighters.

Blood loss in wounded warfighters is the number one cause of death from otherwise survivable trauma. Current approaches to treat wounded special operations warriors in austere environments include the use of frozen plasma (for coagulation) that needs to be thawed, a time-consuming approach where every minute is critical for survival. More recently powdered plasma, containing clotting factors that can be rapidly rehydrated before IV administration, has been implemented with some success. Oleolive has patented technology to prepare platelet-rich plasma powder (PRPP) predicted to be superior in preventing blood loss as compared to powdered plasma, since a main function of platelets is blood clotting. The overall objective of this Phase II SBIR application is to determine if PRPP is efficacious in blood clotting and slowing/stopping blood loss. Oleolive has assembled a team of experts in animal models, hematology, military operations (AFRL, 24th SOW, DEVGRU, AFSOC), lyophilization and biochemistry/cell biology to characterize PRPP. The goal is to prepare field compatible PRPP from special ops personnel before they engage in combat which would be carried on their person or the embedded medic to be administered (autologous) following trauma. This product would also have an impact on the non-government market.