Whistle blower reveal that Trump administration is funding startup plasma company based in owner’s condo

Govt funding of company which has neither proven technology nor manufacturing facilities is linked to lobbying by ex-GOP senator Rick Santorum

The former three-term Republican senator from Pennsylvania is part-owner of the South Carolina based company

Plasma Technologies LLC has received $750K seed money to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology

Another much as $65 million could be on the way to build a commercial facility – far more than the $51.6 million the company was seeking in govt. funding

It’s another in a series of contracts awarded despite concerns over the proposals

Records obtained by the AP describe senior Trump appointee Dr Robert Kadlec as a key supporter of Plasma Tech, owned by Eugene Zurlo

Zurlo presented to HHS that the company had production facilities in SC

AP reports that it’s investigations show that Plasma Technologies operates out of Zurlo’s condo in in Charlotte, SC

The ‘production facilities’ cited by by the Trump administration is non-existent

Three years ago, Republican donor Zurlo brought Rick Santorum aboard as co-owner of the floundering startup

Santorum told the AP it would have been a ‘crime’ if he hadn´t used his influence to get Plasma Technologies recognized; ‘Shame on me if I hadn´t,’ he said

The Trump administration is set to hand over $65million of COVID pandemic funds to a plasma company that operates out of a Republican donor’s condo, according to reports by the AP. 
The company, Plasma Technologies LLC, which claims its technology will turn human plasma into protein-rich antibody therapies, has already received an initial grant to test the possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology. 
Tens of millions in additional funding could be on the way after lobbying by ex-Republican senator and part-owner of the company, Rick Santorum. 
This has raised flags as another in a series of contracts awarded despite concerns over their proposals voiced by government scientists. 
Santorum admitted his role when he told the AP it would have been a ‘crime’ if he had not used his influence to get Plasma Technologies recognized; ‘Shame on me if I hadn’t,’ the GOP politician said. 

Santorum, a three-term GOP senator from Pennsylvania is co-owner of the obscure South Carolina company that reportedly, has been operating out of founder luxury condo according to internal government documents.
Three years ago former pharmaceutical industry executive Eugene Zurlo’s, a well-connected Republican donor himself, is said to have brought Santorum aboard as a part-owner.
The Trump administration recently gave the longtime Republican political donor seed money to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology, noting their ‘manufacturing facilities’ in Charleston. However AP is reporting that they conducted an investigation and found the touted manufacturing facility to be non-existent.

Plasma Technologies may not be the only with bogus ‘manufacturing facilities’.
Other controversial contract awards over internal objections include a $21 million study of the heartburn drug Pepcid as a COVID therapy.
Another company, ApiJect Systems America, a startup with an unapproved medicine injection technology was as awarded more than a half-billion dollars to supply its devices. Furthermore, ApiJect was awarded the contract despite having no factory to manufacture the devices.
Highlighting the rash of ill-vetted awards a government whistleblower has claimed that a $1.6 billion vaccine contract to Novavax Inc. was made over objections of scientific staff..
At the center of these deals is Dr. Robert Kadlec, a senior Trump appointee at the Department of the Health and Human Services, who backed the Pepcid, Novavax and ApiJect projects. 
Records obtained by the AP also describe Kadlec as a key supporter of Plasma Tech. 

Kadlec has come under pressure from the White House to act with more urgency and not be bound by lower-level science officials whom Trump has castigated as the ‘deep state’ and accused of politically motivated delays in fielding COVID-19 vaccines and remedies.
Of more than a dozen blood plasma industry leaders and medical experts., few had heard of Zurlo´s company or its technology for turning human plasma into protein-rich antibody therapies, and would not comment, the AP reports
Zurlo in an email has claimed that the shortage of plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients, which is needed to make these therapies, underlines the need for the technology he´s patented to harvest as many of these proteins as possible.

In early April, shortly after Congress supplied hundreds of billions of dollars to combat the pandemic, Santorum allegedly, stepped up his charm offensive on behalf of his company and their ‘disruptive and transformative,’ technology.
At the center of these controversial awards is Dr. Robert Kadlec, a senior Trump appointee at the Department of the Health and Human Services. Described as a key supporter of Plasma Tech, Dr. Kadlec allegedly also backed the Pepcid, Novavax and ApiJect projects.
While a HHS spokesperson said Kadlec ‘does not have a role in technical review of proposals nor in negotiating contracts,’ Santorum told the AP he communicated directly with Kadlec, whom he described as ‘very supportive’ of Plasma Technologies.
In mid-August, the federal government awarded Plasma Technologies a $750,000 grant to demonstrate that it could deliver on its promises.

Skeptical HHS experts didn´t see Zurlo´s technology as worthy of millions in emergency pandemic funding, consequently, the initial pitch by the three-time senator who now works as a lobbyist, was a bust.
Sources revealed that the experts at an agency known as BARDA, which is overseen by Dr. Kadlec, who were seeking COVID-19 vaccines and therapies for immediate delivery, believed the Plasma Technologies project was a longer-term project.
It’s pitch failed, Plasma Technologies turned to the Defense Department, another participant in the government´s COVID-19 response. 
The company submitted a proposal in May, obtained by AP, was seeking sought $51.6 million in government funding to build a plasma fractionation facility in Raleigh, North Carolina, or Atlanta.

The break through for Plasma Technologies came in late July, after Steven Morani, a senior Pentagon official interested military brass in the idea of a U.S.-owned and operated facility to manufacture plasma-based therapies.
Subsequently HHS disbursed an initial grant of $750,000 to the startup according to the government emails, with as much as $65 million in government funding to come later for a commercial facility, nearly $14 million more than Plasma Technologies was seeking in their proposal. 
Reacting to the AP story Santorum, has accused the reporter of writing a ‘political hit piece.’