Abstract :
The Early Years of the Plasma Industry: In the early 1940’s, Dr. E. Cohn discovered the plasma fractionation process in Boston (1). After it was found that albumin was an efficacious and safe drug, and could be produced in large quantities, several manufacturing plants were built in the United States. Pharmaceutical companies involved at the early stage of the fractionation industry included Parke Davis, which built a plant in Los Angeles (now operated by Grifols), Armour near Chicago, now operated by CSL Behring, Cutter in Berkeley, and Baxter in Glendale, near Los Angeles. Some public entities also built facilities to process human plasma, such as the Michigan Biological Laboratory.
