Baxter-Cerus Donated Blood Pathogen Inactivation (Arthur D. Little)

Baxter and Cerus jointly contracted the Technology and Product development team at Arthur D. Little to help develop instrumentation for their novel process for treating donated blood products.

The challenge for this product was develop a bench-top instrument that could provide consistent uniform irradiation of ultraviolet light to the donated blood or plasma.The system needed to be designed to be usable by blood donation center staff and fit well with their existing process flow.

The electronics design for this product consisted of an embedded controller for the user interface, sensing and controls. Light sensors were used to monitor the amount of energy presented to the donated blood product. Electronic ballasts were used to provide consistent uniform power to the bulbs.

The product was ultimately commercialized by Cerus as the "Intercept Blood System". This also resulted in numerous patents for Baxter, Cerus and Arthur D. Little.