California has 65 plasma collection centers, the third-highest count in the country. But it is also one of only 10 states that can’t collect enough of the blood component to meet its own medical needs.
When a Californian with an immunodeficiency needs the plasma-derived medicine that keeps them alive, some of the plasma behind that treatment was likely collected in Texas, Utah, or Florida. For a state that helped build the modern biotech industry, relying on other states’ regulatory systems for part of its own medicine supply should be a source of embarrassment.
Most people rarely think about plasma. For patients with chronic conditions, though, plasma-derived medicines are often lifesaving, making California’s shortfall worth noting.
My interest in plasma began almost by accident, when a student asked me to help defend a bone-marrow donation business facing potential federal regulation on the moral grounds that compensation commodified the body. I wrote a letter signed by leading scholars and Nobel laureates, presented it at a Department of Health and Human Services listening session and before the U.S. Senate and argued that restricting compensation would ultimately hurt patients. Months later, the rule was withdrawn. It was the most meaningful policy work I had ever done, and introduced me to the world of plasma collection.
Over years of research and work through the Georgetown Blood and Plasma Research Group, I became known as the “Plasma Professor.” In studying an industry that quietly supports millions of patients worldwide yet is still misunderstood, I learned plasma collection exposes a broader policy lesson: Well-intentioned regulations can inadvertently limit access to critical medical supplies and make essential systems smaller and less resilient than they ought to be.
The United States supplies roughly 70 percent of the world’s plasma, yet California collects far less per capita than other states. The reason is straightforward: California’s regulatory framework makes it harder to open and operate plasma collection centers than states like Utah, Texas, or Florida. Licensing requirements, staffing mandates, and complex compliance rules create significant barriers. While existing centers can be as productive, their quantity does not reflect the state’s size, wealth and medical sophistication.
The average plasma center employs 40 to 50 people and contributes millions of dollars to the local economy through wages, taxes, and direct spending. California is leaving those jobs, that investment, and that productive capacity to other states.
Of course, this issue is less about economics and infrastructure than it is about patients’ health. A single patient with an immune deficiency can require plasma from as many as 800 individual donations every year. As it is, about 144 of those donations take place outside of California. That’s not because Californians are unwilling to roll up their sleeves for their neighbors; it’s because opening collection centers are overly cumbersome.
None of this requires California to abandon its commitment to safety. Plasma collection in the United States is already one of the most tightly regulated industries in the world. But rules should reflect the current technological, and medical realities.
California has modernized complex systems before, from clean energy to biotechnology to digital health. It can do the same here, and given its resources, should not be content to trail behind.