Vitrafy Life Sciences Partners with Vitalant Innovation Center to Advance Next-Generation Frozen Red Blood Cell Platform as Legacy Technology Reaches End of Life

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vitrafy Life Sciences, Inc., a life sciences company redefining cryopreservation, today announced a partnership with Vitalant Innovation Center for testing services as Vitrafy seeks to advance, approve, and deploy its next-generation cryopreservation ecosystem. The Innovation Center is part of Vitalant, one of the largest nonprofit blood and biotherapies healthcare organizations in the United States. The collaboration addresses a pivotal industry transition: as glycerol-based frozen red blood cell (RBC) technology reaches the expected end of its operational life, the U.S. blood community requires a successor to preserve and build upon decades of established capability.

A Generational Transition for Cryopreserved Blood

Glycerol-based cryopreservation has been the foundation of frozen RBC programs in the United States for decades, reliably supporting rare-donor programs, mass-trauma preparedness, and military forward deployment. Each year, more than 13.6 million units of whole blood and apheresis RBCs are collected to sustain these capabilities across the civilian and military blood system.

That technology is now reaching the natural end of its serviceable life. The processing equipment and materials that enable glycerol-based cryopreservation are being phased out, and no approved replacement currently exists. Preserving the frozen blood capabilities the U.S. blood system has come to depend on — and extending them — requires a new generation of technology to be validated and deployed before the transition is complete.

“The Vitalant Innovation Center is designed to support testing and process development for innovative ideas. As glycerol-based cryopreservation reaches end of life, we are pleased to partner with Vitrafy to support what can come next through our testing services at the Vitalant Innovation Center,” said Susanne Marschner, Ph.D., Vice President of Research and Scientific Programs, Vitalant Innovation Center.

Vitrafy’s Next-Generation Cryopreservation Ecosystem

Vitrafy’s proprietary cryopreservation ecosystem integrates freezing technology, software, formulations, and workflows into a unified, liquid nitrogen–free solution. Designed to be deployed close to the point of collection, the platform enables mobile, decentralized cryopreservation with the speed, consistency, and quality control that civilian healthcare and military operations require.

Vitalant Innovation Center brings both the clinical depth and operational scale needed to generate a robust, multi-environment evidence base as the platform advances toward broad commercial deployment. The partnership builds on Vitrafy’s existing industry collaborations and is structured to produce outcomes that benefit the wider blood community, not just a single network.

Beyond replacing existing capability, the platform’s portability and independence from fixed cold-chain infrastructure point toward an expanded future for frozen blood. Settings where current cryopreservation methods have never been practical — including pre-hospital environments and austere forward-deployed locations — represent a meaningful and largely unserved opportunity. As the technology matures through regulatory and clinical validation, the possibility of bringing frozen blood to these settings for the first time is a horizon Vitrafy and its partners are actively working toward.

“Vitalant is a pioneer in the U.S. blood market and one of the most respected organizations in the sector — there is no better partner to help establish what next-generation cryopreservation looks like at scale. But this work is bigger than any single partnership. The platform we’re building is designed to serve the entire blood community, and we genuinely hope other blood networks will join us in shaping it. We welcome that collaboration, and we look forward to government, regulatory, and military stakeholders engaging as the program moves forward,” said Brent Owens, CEO, Vitrafy Life Sciences.

An Open Invitation to the Blood Community

Under the partnership agreement, Vitrafy and Vitalant Innovation Center will execute a phased program covering planning, technology integration, and evaluation of frozen RBC outcomes against defined performance, regulatory, and operational milestones. The intent is for the in vitro findings to determine regulatory pathways and scaled deployment approaches that extend nationally and beyond this collaboration.

Vitrafy welcomes engagement from other blood services organizations, federal agencies, regulatory and standards bodies, and military and civilian leaders who wish to contribute to — or benefit from — the development of a next-generation cryopreservation standard for the United States. Vitrafy believes that a challenge of this scale is best solved together, and the program has been structured with that in mind.

About Vitrafy Life Sciences

Vitrafy Life Sciences, Inc. is focused on the development and commercialization of a decentralized cryopreservation ecosystem for blood and cell-based products. Vitrafy’s technology is designed to address critical supply, availability, and scalability challenges across the blood and advanced therapy sectors.

About the Vitalant Innovation Center

The Vitalant Innovation Center helps turn promising ideas into real-world solutions by providing the infrastructure and agility to test, validate and implement new technologies, helping to shape the future of transfusion medicine. The Innovation Center is part of Vitalant, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit blood and biotherapies healthcare organizations, providing hospitals and patients across the U.S. a safe blood supply, specialized laboratory services, transfusion medicine expertise and world-renowned research. For more information, visit research.vitalant.org.