U.S. Navy Receives Funding for Further Development of H...( CAMBRIDGE Mass. May 8 /- Biopure ...),Health

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Biopure Corporation (Nasdaq: BPUR) announced today that the Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC) has received new funding of approximately $3.4 million for the development of Hemopure(R) (HBOC-201). These funds are being granted through the Department of Defense for a project entitled: A Multifunctional Blood Substitute for Field Resuscitation of Polytrauma Combat Casualties with Brain Injury and Concomitant Hemorrhagic Shock.

Biopure is collaborating with the NMRC to develop HBOC-201 as a platform for the first multifunction blood substitute for trauma patients. The preclinical work towards a multifunctional product for traumatic brain injury is expected to be conducted by the NMRC itself and other laboratories to be engaged by the NMRC. The project is part of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder/Traumatic Brain Injury Research Program of the Office of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs.

This funding for development toward an indication of traumatic brain injury is in addition to the $22.5 million previously allocated by Congress for the military for research of HBOC-201. Biopure anticipates that the work relating to the multifunction blood substitute development will begin as soon as certain agreements are completed. The company continues to support the NMRC's efforts toward lifting the clinical hold on the NMRC's investigational new drug application to conduct the pending, proposed clinical trial in trauma patients entitled "Restore Effective Survival in Shock (RESUS).

Biopure Corporation

Biopure Corporation develops, manufactures and markets pharmaceuticals, called oxygen therapeutics, that are intravenously administered to deliver oxygen t
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