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Grifols, a global healthcare company and leading producer of plasma medicines with North Carolina offices and operations in RTP and Clayton, is working with a local charity and AmeriCares to give Romanian children with hemophilia a traditional camp experience this summer.
Hemophilia is a rare, genetic disorder primarily affecting boys that prevents blood from clotting. In Romania, where treatments are expensive and difficult to access, children with hemophilia risk serious, sometimes life-threatening injuries from even a minor cut or fall. While there is no cure for the disease, hemophilia can be managed through regular administration of the blood-clotting medicines, Factor VIII and Factor IX.
Grifols donated most of the therapies needed for Camp Ray of Hope to host a weeklong program for 40 children this summer. The camp, a program of Wake Forest-based S.T.A.R Children’s Relief Fund, gives children with hemophilia the opportunity to engage in physical activities that are too dangerous the rest of the year. This week 39 boys and one girl are participating.
“For one week of the year the children can play sports, go swimming or even try a zip line without worry about serious injury,” said S.T.A.R. Children Relief Founder and President Adriana Henderson. “It gives them back their childhood.”
AmeriCares, a global health and disaster relief organization that has been supporting Camp Ray of Hope since 2006, worked with the Grifols Corporate Office in Research Triangle Park to coordinate the donation. The product is manufactured in Grifols’ manufacturing facilities located in Clayton, N.C., and Los Angeles, Calif., using blood plasma donated at their 150 collection centers across the U.S., including one in Raleigh. Another local company, Whitley Logistics Inc. of Raleigh, donated its services to transport the Grifols products within the U.S. before AmeriCares shipped them to Romania.
“Grifols feels a great sense of pride and responsibility in supplying our life-saving products to those in need by working with organizations like AmeriCares, particularly when it supports charities local to where Grifols has a presence, such as in North Carolina,” explained Jim Bacon, Sr. Director, Grifols Demand Planning & International Customer Operations.
Grifols has worked with AmeriCares since 2010 to donate its products to numerous patients in need throughout the world.
