They’re quick to point out the American Red Cross’ leaky record on service. Nothing makes Bowman’s and Mitchell’s you-know-what boil faster. At that point there’s no more surplus, General Blood probably goes away.” “We project, over the next five to six years, that blood demand will start increasing again and could increase rather dramatically. “We’re projecting that as the boomers get into their 70s, you’re going to see a lot more hip replacements, knee replacements,” says Jim MacPherson, CEO of America’s Blood Centers, a network and trade organization. But when the economy eventually turns and more people have those operations, there will be less need for a middleman. Critics say this gave General Blood an opening: soaking up the excess and distributing pints where they were needed. The recession caused a plunge in such procedures and a surplus in supply. For years hospitals and blood centers operated on the assumption of blood shortages, leading to periodic cancelations of elective surgeries. There are lingering challenges-a constantly shifting market chief among them. By this time in 2013, thanks in part to approval to sell blood in New York and New Jersey, Bowman expects positive cash flow. Not yet profitable, General Blood last year grossed 18% on revenue of $500,000. and a single institution in Oakland, Calif. The company has snagged only two sales contracts: with a two-hospital system in Charleston, W. Mitchell and Bowman showed up at one hospital in Boston last year expecting to sign a contract only to be grilled by ten or more doctors and administrators-who had no intention of doing any business with General Blood.
Most have never heard of General Blood, and few are impressed with its blood-broker certification.Įven if you get past the lab guard at the gate, you still need an audience with the CFO or whoever is in charge of ordering. There’s so many different stakeholders in each decision that nobody owns a project.” The first hurdle is the risk-averse hospital lab director. “Selling into hospitals is like storming a castle,” says Mitchell. All they needed was to open up the tubes and let the blood start flowing, right? Certification from the feds, to buy and sell blood that meets FDA standards, proved a snap.
#Can gay men donate blood red cross series
The two had little trouble raising a total $52,000 (some of it their own) in the spring of 2010 or another $675,000 in a series A round with Minnesota investors last July. Mitchell, a pal from business school, was an investment advisor for He opened a maquinaria near Deere’s factory in Torreón, Mexico. from the University of Minnesota he worked at his parents’ company, Magnum Machining, which finishes high-precision parts for John Deere andĮmerson Electric. His experience in supply-chain management taught Bowman to squeeze more efficiency out of blood distribution. Bowman and 30-year-old cofounder David Mitchell guarantee delivery of the mix of types (O+, AB and B–) that hospitals prefer for local populations blood types vary somewhat by ethnicity (see graphic). to Duluth, Minn.-to ship blood byįedEx to hospitals that have agreements with General Blood. He’s contracted with donation centers along the Interstate 35 corridor-from Laredo, Tex. A pint of blood might cost a hospital $210 in Wisconsin but $265 in New Jersey.īowman, 33, can offer pints at an average price of $229. The system leads to all kinds of imbalances. distributors, which is still in place today. It wasn’t until World War II that the staggering demand for blood gave rise to a network of regional U.S. But the first network of collection centers originated in 1930, after Moscow surgeon Sergei Yudin resuscitated a young man who’d slashed his wrists by injecting him with 420cc of blood from a cadaver. Using one person’s blood to heal another is an idea that’s been around for centuries.