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here do you turn if you have no plant to produce a new, non-FDA-approved blood substitute, but yet you need a manufacturing facility in place in order to get approval? The answer: To whomever can provide the most support in what is usually a long road to federal approval. In Cambridge, Mass.-based Biopure Corp.'s case, it was Sumter, S.C.

      Biopure plans to construct a US$85 million biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Sumter, creating 185 new jobs. The new facility will be used to produce Biopure's investigational, oxygen-carrying pharmaceutical solution, Hemopure, for perioperative use to eliminate or reduce red blood cell transfusions in patients undergoing elective surgery. The company has already received approval to market the "blood replacement" product in South Africa and is seeking approval in the United States.
      "We chose Sumter County because of the economic infrastructure and skilled work force in the surrounding area as evidenced during our meetings with representatives from Shaw Air Force Base and our visits to the Beckton Dickinson, Caterpillar and Roche plants [in South Carolina]," says Carl Rausch, Biopure's chairman and CEO.