Prolacta Bioscience, the pioneer of human milk-based nutritional products for premature infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), will hold a grand opening event on Thursday, October 24, 2013, at their new facility in City of Industry, CA, just 20 miles east of Los Angeles.
The new 67,000 square foot building will be home to the only pharmaceutical grade state-of-the-art manufacturing facility for human breast milk-based products, and home to the world's largest human milk freezer as well. The freezer alone stands at 115,560 cubic feet, which will provide controlled frozen storage capacity for more than 110,000 liters of breast milk. The new facility also includes two ISO 8 and one ISO 7 cleanrooms totaling over 10,000 square feet.
"The Prolacta team could not be happier about what we have achieved for preemies and hospital NICUs across the country," said Scott Elster, CEO of Prolacta. "We now have a facility that can provide human milk nutritional products for every NICU in the U.S. As hospitals continue to transition to exclusive human milk diets in their NICU, we are positioned to meet their needs by providing fortifier, pasteurized milk, and ready-to-feed products, all free of any cow milk or cow milk proteins."
Prolacta is the only company to make nutritional products from human breast milk, as opposed to cow milk for preemies in the NICU. Prolacta also provides the screening, collection, standardization and pasteurization of donor human milk for hospitals that are transforming their standard of care by maintaining exclusive human milk diets in their NICUs, as opposed to cow milk-based formula or nutrition. In their most recent policy statement on breastfeeding and the use of human milk, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) acknowledged the importance of exclusive human milk diets by pointing to a reduction in the odds of developing the often-fatal disease necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in extremely preterm infants (those born weighing 500-1250g), when fed an exclusively human milk diet, when compared to those fed a diet consisting of cow milk-based proteins.
Prolacta makes the only Human Milk Fortifier (HMF) from human milk, Prolact+ H2MF. HMF is needed to provide the added nutrition necessary for extremely premature infants in the NICU, especially micro preemies, since they have extra nutritional needs above what can be provided by their mother's milk or donor milk alone. Prolacta's products can only be administered in a hospital setting by prescription and cannot be purchased directly by consumers.
At the grand opening event, Prolacta plans to unveil Prolact CR TM their new human milk caloric fortifier and their new line of "ready-to-feed products," Prolact RTF TM human milk-based premature infant formula for preemie babies born weighing 1250 grams or less. The Prolact RTF line will be the first and only formula for premature infants that is made from human milk, as opposed to cow milk. This human milk formula for preemies will be standardized to 24, 26, or 28 calories, depending upon the neonatologist's prescription. It will provide a convenient way to deliver 100% human milk-based fortified nutrition when a mother's own milk is unavailable.
"Prolacta stands alone in being able to provide NICUs with a complete line of human milk formulations to meet the needs of critically ill premature infants," stated Elster. "We are proud to be the first and only company to make human milk nutritional products that will be of such a significant benefit for premature infants."
