On May 4, 2020, Mayo Clinic was awarded a $26 million contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The financial support was for the Expanded Access Program (EAP) for convalescent plasma to fight COVID-19.

The federal support helped cover the cost of collecting and distributing the convalescent plasma, increase patient access, and support the scientific and regulatory infrastructure to operate the program. Mayo Clinic served as the central Institutional Review Board (IRB) to oversee the EAP.

The BARDA funding comes at a time most needed to continue expanding access and infrastructure for this therapeutic countermeasure effort. In less than a month, more than 2,000 hospitals and 4,000 physicians enrolled 10,000 patients. To date, more than 5,000 patients had been infused and thousands more are potentially eligible for convalescent plasma.

Convalescent plasma refers to blood plasma collected from people who have recovered from COVID-19. That plasma is then used to treat others with advanced illness. In order to participate, plasma donors must go through testing to verify they have recovered from COVID-19 and have no other underlying health conditions. The patient is transfused with the convalescent donor’s plasma, which contains antibodies that may lessen severity of disease.

Physicians at any institution in the United States who are treating hospitalized patients with COVID-19 can register their patients’ information for access through the EAP. Mayo Clinic is committed to advancing the science of medicine to ensure patients are able to benefit from new discoveries as quickly as possible. Mayo’s goal is to rapidly discover and apply scientific advances that will defeat this deadly disease.