During the first three decades of the 1900s, blood transfusion methods were developed and implemented, saving thousands of lives during World War II, but also revealing the need for a universal perfusion medium to replace human blood transfusion.

For over a hundred years research institutes in both private and public sectors have focused attention on finding a gas transport substitute for red blood cells to resolve concerns with transfusing blood between human individuals. Whole blood has a shelf-life of less than six weeks, requires slow and costly blood type matching on both the donor and the recipient, and requires costly tests to certify freedom from viral diseases such as hepatitis and AIDS. The FDA has called human blood the “most dangerous drug” due to its frequent concealment of deadly disease.

In the 1960s, scientists discovered non-toxic and inert carriers of oxygen and carbon dioxide called perfluorocarbons (PFC) that can be used in place of blood for temporary therapeutic effects. In 1990 the FDA granted approval to the first and only human blood substitute product, Fluosol, developed by Japan’s Green Cross Company after twenty years of research and clinical trials in animals and ten years in humans in Japan, United States, and Europe. Green Cross-licensed Fluosol to their U.S. subsidiary Alpha Therapeutics Corporation, which supplied Fluosol for successful use in over 13,000 patients per year for three years. Half of Fluosol’s uses were off license for the application of transfusions legally prescribed by doctors and the balance for its FDA approved angioplasty application.

In March 1990, Dr. Thomas Drees, who directed the development of Fluosol for Alpha Therapeutics, formed a California corporation, which he named Sanguine, after the Latin word sanguis, which means blood. In 1993 Sanguine became publicly held as a result of being acquired by International Health Resorts, Inc., a Nevada corporation. The Company is now a publicly held Nevada corporation, with 100 million authorized shares of common stock, poised to market a second generation blood substitute product with broader applications than Fluosol.