One of the pharmaceutical companies which received blood products from the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) has confirmed that it used the plasma in the commercial production of blood-clotting agent.
Warner-Lambert said it obtained one or two litres of plasma every three months from the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB), the predecessor to the IBTS. It said the plasma was used as part of a quality-control process to make sure thrombin - a blood-clotting agent - was providing the desired clotting effect.
In a statement to The Irish Times, Mr Ciarán Keaney, company secretary of Pfizer (Ireland) Ltd, which took over Warner-Lambert in 2000, said: "While Warner-Lambert has found no records to indicate that any payment was made to the BTSB, it is possible that the agency could have been reimbursed for a small amount of plasma."
Mr Keaney said the arrangement ran from 1986 to 1997. "A commercial product became available to test the effectiveness of thrombin, so plasma was no longer needed from the BTSB."
Pfizer/Warner-Lambert ceased production of thrombin at its Dublin facility in 2003.
Warner-Lambert was one of 23 commercial companies which received blood products from the blood transfusion service in the 1980s and 1990s. Some were donated and some were sold. The IBTS said it could trace payments of about £80,000 (€101,580) it received for blood sold to industry.
An IBTS statement said: "Warner-Lambert received units of liquid plasma for which charges were raised. The last recorded transaction for Warner-Lambert was in January 1997 for 19 units of fresh frozen plasma which were paid for in full."
Other pharmaceutical companies identified by the IBTS as receiving blood include the Elan Corporation, AKZO Nobel and Organon Technica. The University of Iowa also received a blood product. The IBTS said it could not identify why blood would have been exported to a US university.
Other companies included Trinity Biotech, Technicon Ltd and Olympus Diagnostica. Technicon produced blood assay machines for use in hospitals and laboratories.
The IBTS said there was an arrangement between 1984-1990 whereby staff from Technicon were "bled" in Pelican House as blood donors. "In return, fresh units of blood were sent to Technicon on a one-for-one basis," it said.