Aria Diagnostics, Versiti partner on COVID efforts
CARMEL, Ind. (Inside INdiana Business) – Carmel-based Aria Diagnostic Laboratories is partnering with Versiti Blood Center of Indiana to treat COVID-19 patients. Aria says the collaboration will provide COVID-19 convalescent plasma to hospitals throughout the Midwest.
Aria says the partnership unites its testing and logistics expertise with the medical and scientific expertise of Versiti in transfusion medicine and research.
“Reaching out to the people Aria has tested for COVID-19, who had positive results, and asking them to donate their plasma, will help others who may not be so lucky as to fully recover,” said Zak Khan, co-founder of Aria Diagnostic Laboratories. “Our goal is to ask those people whom we have tested in the past – and in the future – to volunteer to donate their plasma, so Versiti can continue to provide this life-saving product to hospitals to treat volumes more and offer these patients a chance to recover faster.”
Since March, Aria says its has been testing hundreds of people for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and Versiti has been collecting plasma from donors who have recovered from the disease since April. Aria says the work will now assist in identifying and contacting potential new donors to help treat others diagnosed with the virus.
Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as an Investigational New Drug, Aria says the blood-related treatment could offer hope to the hundreds of patients who continue to be diagnosed and would be used by hospitals for the most severely affected patients.
Versiti is working with its partner hospitals to identify recovered patients, and Aria says donors would be referred to Versiti through the work of its labs.
“The potential donors must first be proven to have had a COVID-19 diagnosis through a positive lab test result, which Aria provides, and must be symptom free for 14 days,” said Versiti Senior Medical Director Dr. Dan Waxman. “It’s a very collaborative effort with our hospital partners who will be working to identify and verify the donors.”
In April, Aria provided thousands of COVID-19 test kits to area municipalities and New York City, as well as numerous companies and first responders.