BioLife Plasma Services is opening a new donation center in Jacksonville’s Arlington neighborhood.
This is the fifth BioLife center to open in Florida, and it’s expected to create 60 new jobs.
Plasma is used in a variety of live-saving therapies for people with life-threatening diseases, like immunodeficiency disorders, hemophilia, and hereditary angioedema and demand is higher than usual right now.
Matthew Stueben, manager of the new BioLife Plasma Services center in Jacksonville, said that’s because plasma is critical in the quest to find a treatment for COVID-19.
“People that have had COVID and have recovered from it, they’ve built up antibodies,” Stueben explained. “We are now collecting from those individuals that have recovered and become healthy again. We’re using those antibodies to do some research.”
Stueben says the facility is hoping to collect plasma from as many as 200 donors in the first week. But, he says, that weekly number will quickly ramp up.
“With what we're already forecasting in Jacksonville, a good healthy center can process in the ballpark of 2,000 to 3,000 donations a week,” he said.
The new center will be located at 9312 Arlington Expy. and is scheduled to open on Saturday, Aug. 1.
Everyone in the center will be following CDC guidelines to help stop the spread of coronavirus. That includes proper social distancing and requiring all staff and donors to wear masks.
To donate, you must be at least 18 years old and weigh 110 pounds or more.
For more information, or to schedule an appointment, go to BioLifePlasma.com.
Brendan Rivers can be reached at brivers@wjct.org, 904-358-6396 or on Twitter at @BrendanRivers.
