CytoSorbents Corporation (NASDAQ: CTSO), a critical care immunotherapy leader commercializing its CytoSorb® blood purification technology to treat deadly inflammation in critically-ill and cardiac surgery patients around the world, announced that it has expanded direct sales of CytoSorb for all applications to Poland and the Netherlands, and for critical care applications in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. As part of this effort, the company established CytoSorbents Poland Sp. z.o.o., a wholly-owned subsidiary of CytoSorbents Europe GmbH.
Dr. Christian Steiner, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing of CytoSorbents stated, “We are excited to expand into these territories, increasing the total number of direct countries to ten, where we will benefit from higher gross margin direct sales. Last year, direct sales from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg accounted for more than 70% of our total product revenue. Our new sales teams in each of these countries will leverage the existing product registrations and approvals of CytoSorb, our collective expertise on selling the product direct, and the ongoing efforts of Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) as our co-marketing partner in each of these territories, to rapidly gain sales this year. In addition to its co-marketing efforts, FMC will focus on its successes in critical care in France and Finland, while assuming exclusive distributorship in the Czech Republic for all applications, and pursuing significantly larger commercial opportunities in critical care in both Mexico and Korea.”
Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have a collective population of 76 million people, with high standards of medical care and advanced medical practices. As with most modernized countries, these territories struggle with the high burden of an aging population that is a major risk factor for life-threatening inflammatory illnesses and heart disease, creating a very favorable market for CytoSorb.
About CytoSorbents Corporation (NASDAQ: CTSO)
CytoSorbents Corporation is a leader in critical care immunotherapy, specializing in blood purification. Its flagship product, CytoSorb® is approved in the European Union with distribution in 55 countries around the world, as an extracorporeal cytokine adsorber designed to reduce the “cytokine storm” or “cytokine release syndrome” that could otherwise cause massive inflammation, organ failure and death in common critical illnesses. These are conditions where the risk of death is extremely high, yet no effective treatments exist. CytoSorb® is also being used during and after cardiac surgery to remove inflammatory mediators that can lead to post-operative complications, including multiple organ failure. CytoSorbents is conducting its pivotal REFRESH 2-AKI trial – a multi-center, randomized controlled, clinical trial intended to support U.S. regulatory approval of CytoSorb for use in a heart-lung machine during complex cardiac surgery to reduce organ injury. CytoSorb® has been used in more than 56,000 human treatments to date.
CytoSorbents’ purification technologies are based on biocompatible, highly porous polymer beads that can actively remove toxic substances from blood and other bodily fluids by pore capture and surface adsorption. Its technologies have received non-dilutive grant, contract, and other funding of nearly $26 million from DARPA, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), and others. The Company has numerous products under development based upon this unique patented blood purification technology including CytoSorb-XL™, HemoDefend™, VetResQ™, K+ontrol™, ContrastSorb, DrugSorb, and others. For more information, please visit the Company’s websites at www.cytosorbents.com and www.cytosorb.com or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.