CSL Behring Renews Pledge to Provide Significant Funding and Donated Coagulation Factor to World Federation of Hemophilia Over 3-Year Period

Commitment will help WFH's "Close the Gap" campaign aimed at improving healthcare in developing world

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Apr 16, 2012, 04:05 ET

KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa. and MONTREAL, April 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- To mark World Hemophilia Day 2012, CSL Behring has again committed to making significant financial contributions and donations of clotting factor concentrate to the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) Global Alliance for Progress (GAP) program over the period of three years, beginning in 2012. The product donations will be made with medicine having a minimum shelf-life of one year. The goal of the WFH GAP program is to improve the diagnosis and treatment of hemophilia in developing countries. In 2009, CSL Behring was the first company to make such a three-year commitment to WFH. CSL Limited, parent company to CSL Behring, is committed to contributing to the economic, social and environmental well-being of its communities. As part of the agreement, CSL Behring will provide 2 million units of one or more of its various clotting factor products to the WFH each year for three years.

"CSL Behring is proud to be a strong supporter of the World Federation of Hemophilia and to have been a contributor to the GAP program each year since it was established," said Paul Perreault, President of CSL Behring. "We are committed to serving people who have rare and serious bleeding disorders and we will continue to work toward solutions that make a positive impact for hemophilia patients and their communities in regions of the world where those solutions are needed most."

Blood clotting factor is manufactured from purified human plasma or by using recombinant technology.

CSL Behring clotting factor is manufactured in: the Kankakee, IL, USA facility of CSL Behring; in Melbourne, Australia, at the company's Broadmeadows facility, and in Marburg, Germany.

"The product donations we receive from CSL Behring help us to support hemophilia patients in many remote areas of the world where access to these life-saving medicines is extremely challenging," said Mark Skinner, president of WFH. "The reality is that most people with hemophilia or other bleeding disorder do not receive adequate diagnosis, treatment, and management for their conditions. WFH is committed to realizing a day when treatment and sustainable systems to deliver it are available globally in order to close the gap of care for these patients around the world. We certainly appreciate this kind of long-term commitment from CSL Behring. It helps us immeasurably toward that goal."

An estimated one in one thousand women and men has a bleeding disorder.

About the Global Alliance for Progress
The Global Alliance for Progress (GAP) is a 10-year healthcare development project, launched in 2003. GAP's goal is to greatly increase the diagnosis and treatment of people with hemophilia and other bleeding disorders in developing countries. The project aims to close the gap between the number of people born with hemophilia and those who reach adulthood, the gap between the estimated and actual number of people diagnosed with hemophilia, and the gap between the amount of treatment product needed versus what is available. To-date, a total of 23,324 patients with hemophilia, 2,423 with von Willebrand disease (VWD) and 1,509 with rare clotting factor deficiencies have been diagnosed/registered through the GAP program.

GAP partners include CSL Behring, the Jan Willem Andre de la Porte Family Foundation, the Irish Hemophilia Society, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other interested parties. GAP country programs are designed to improve five main areas: government support, the care delivery system, medical expertise and diagnosis, quality and quantity of treatment products, and the national hemophilia organization. At present, there are 12 ongoing GAP countries, including Algeria, Belarus, Ecuador, Lebanon, Moldova, Morocco, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, Tunisia, China, and Syria. Previous GAP countries included Armenia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Georgia, Jordan, Mexico, the Philippines, and Russia.

About the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH)
For 50 years, the World Federation of Hemophilia, an international not-for-profit organization has worked to improve the lives of people with hemophilia and other inherited bleeding disorders. Established in 1963, it is a global network of patient organizations in 118 countries and has official recognition from the World Health Organization. Visit WFH online at www.wfh.org.

About CSL Behring
CSL Behring is a global leader in the plasma protein biotherapeutics industry. Passionate about improving the quality of patients' lives, CSL Behring manufactures and markets a range of safe and effective plasma-derived and recombinant products and related services. The company's therapies are used in the treatment of immune deficiency disorders, hereditary angioedema, haemophilia, von Willebrand disease, other bleeding disorders and inherited emphysema. Other products are used for the prevention of hemolytic diseases in the newborn, in cardiac surgery, organ transplantation and in the treatment of burns. The company also operates one of the world's largest plasma collection networks, CSL Plasma. CSL Behring is a subsidiary of CSL Limited, a biopharmaceutical company with headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. For more information, visit www.cslbehring.com.

SOURCE CSL Behring