Plasma is a vital medical resource; Europe faces supply gaps and dependency on imports, prompting debates on donor compensation models.
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Human blood plasma is a vital resource for modern medicine, used to produce essential drugs like immunoglobulins and clotting factors, which cannot be synthesized artificially. Europe possesses the largest capacity globally for processing this resource (around 42 million liters annually), but it fails to collect enough domestic plasma; in 2023, European countries supplied only 10.1 million liters against a need of about 15.6 million liters, relying heavily on imports from the US, creating dependency risks. This situation reignites debates over whether voluntary donation models can sustain growing demand or if financial incentives are necessary. New EU regulations maintain the principle of unpaid donation but allow member states to offer compensation that covers costs without constituting a financial incentive for donation.
While Europe generally relies on voluntary blood donation, plasma collection varies; some countries like Austria, Czechia, Germany, and Hungary implement financial compensation, while others use non-monetary incentives. The journey from donation to finished medicine can take up to 12 months, and one patient’s year of treatment may require up to 900 donations.
In Bulgaria, the focus remains primarily on emergency blood shortages for surgeries, with plasma’s role in drug production being secondary. Although Bulgaria has domestic capacity for processing plasma into medicines via “Bul Bio – NTSPB,” it still relies on imports. Plasma production figures show increases across recent years, but output of key products like Albumin 20% BB is declining, while Immunoglobulin-intact 5% IgG production is increasing. Despite local efforts, Bulgaria imports various plasma-derived medicines and faces supply vulnerabilities for certain products.
Internationally, other countries present varied models: Greece collects blood but lacks a functioning industrial process to convert excess plasma into drugs; Czechia utilizes both voluntary and paid plasma donation models, leading to surplus plasma but shortages of voluntary blood donors; Austria leads in large-scale plasma collection via apheresis with structured compensation; Ireland recently restored the use of its own donor plasma after decades of relying almost entirely on US imports; France has a state producer (LFB) but still imports about 65% of its immunoglobulins; Spain faces challenges meeting rising immunoglobulin demand despite industrial capacity, prompting increased focus on apheresis; and Italy sees growing plasma volume for pharmaceuticals but remains vulnerable to external supply chain disruptions.
