Hemanext is dedicated to improving transfusion care by preserving the vitality of red blood cells through oxygen-controlled storage.
Red blood cells (RBC) are essential to life—but their quality declines during storage. Hemanext was founded to change that. By combining decades of hematology research with practical innovation, we’ve developed oxygen-controlled storage technology designed to preserve RBC function and integrity.
Our mission is to help every transfusion deliver RBCs that are closer to their natural state within the body and to improve outcomes for patients around the world.
Hemanext began with a simple question: how can we make stored blood more like fresh blood?
The answer lay in the biology of oxygen. Decades of in vitro research have shown that oxidative stress is a key driver of RBC degradation during storage. By reducing oxygen exposure, we help preserve RBC deformability, metabolism, and oxygen delivery.1-3
Today, Hemanext is turning that science into real-world impact with the goal of giving hospitals and blood establishments a new standard for quality and performance.4-7
- 2006: Company acquired rights to Hemanext
- 2007-2012: NIH Phase I grant — feasibility of oxygen-controlled RBC storage; NIH Phase II grant — developed first prototype; prototype developed and tested in vivo
- 2013-2016: $1.7 million NIH Phase II contract to select the final product configuration; acquired manufacturing facility in Avon, MA
- 2017: $3 million NIH Phase IIB grant to develop Hemanext ONE®; Completed CE Mark study
- 2018-2020: Completed FDA clinical study; NIH Phase II grant to develop novel RBC additive solution
- 2021: Hemanext ONE received CE Mark certification; Hemanext received RISE* award from AABB for paper on oxygen-controlled storage3
- 2022: Hemanext ONE technology received the AABB Standards-Compliant Seal†; Post Market Clinical Safety Study began in Bergen, Norway utilizing Hemanext ONE
- 2023: Hemanext ONE granted marketing authorization for commercial distribution via the De Novo process by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration
- 2024: Completion of Clinical Safety Study in Bergen, Norway in patients with hematological malignancies and acutely bleeding burns; Receipt of HCPCS‡ code from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for “Red blood cells, leukocytes reduced, oxygen/carbon dioxide reduced, each unit”; First patients transfused in Clinical Study of patients with transfusion-dependent hematological malignancies
- 2025: $2.9 million NIH Phase II grant for Clinical Study evaluating the use of oxygen-controlled red blood cells processed with Hemanext ONE in patients with sickle cell anemia; Expansion of collaborations with hospitals and blood centers in Europe and the U.S.
Our multidisciplinary team brings together leaders in transfusion medicine, hematology, medical device engineering, and healthcare innovation. Guided by experience and driven by purpose, we’re committed to advancing the science and practice of blood preservation.
To make oxygen-controlled storage the global standard for red blood cell preservation—potentially improving the safety, effectiveness, and outcomes of transfusion medicine worldwide.
Our visionary leaders are steering Hemanext’s path to improving the standard of care for patients who rely on transfusions.
M. Shane Ray has more than two decades of experience driving commercial scale, market expansion, and value creation across innovative healthcare platforms. As President and Chief Executive Officer of Hemanext, he also serves as Chief Commercial Officer, leading global strategy, revenue growth, and market adoption of the company’s Hemanext ONE product.
Prior to Hemanext, Shane served as North American President and Global Chief Marketing Officer at curasan, where he led commercialization efforts for regenerative medicine products. He previously held senior leadership roles at RTI Surgical and Pioneer Surgical Technology, where he was responsible for building high-performing commercial organizations and driving growth across orthobiologics, spine, and sports medicine portfolios.
Shane brings deep expertise in go-to-market strategy and scaling emerging technologies in complex healthcare environments. He has a proven track record of aligning clinical value with economic outcomes to drive adoption among providers, payors, and health systems.
He holds an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Andrew Dunham has been an integral part of Hemanext’s success story.
Dr. Dunham joined the company in 2015 as VP of Clinical & Scientific Affairs and, over the past eight years, played a key role in developing a scientific platform to characterize the biological and biochemical differences between oxygen-controlled and conventional RBCs. His contributions not only led to securing an NIH grant for a pivotal clinical study but also, in collaboration with co-authors, earned the prestigious Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies (AABB) RISE Award for impeccable study design, innovation, significance, and effective communication.
As a scientist, he has authored or co-authored thirty-two publications with hundreds of citations, and on the business front, his distinguished fourteen-year tenure at Baxter Healthcare culminated in five years as the global Vice President of Research and Development, where he led a multinational team of several hundred professionals.
CEO, Classic Communities Organization
Stephen Eckert is President and CEO of Classic Communities Corporation (CCC). CCC is a privately held homebuilder and developer with projects across Maryland.
Steve began his career in property development in 1978 as the Director of Government Relations for the Maryland National Capital Building Industry Association. He joined Herman Porten in 1980 to help assemble the property that served as the foundation for a new company, Porten Sullivan Corporation where he eventually became President. Steve left Porten Sullivan in 1989 to found CCC.
Steve is the recipient of the Milton Kettler Award for lifetime contributions to the community at large and the homebuilding industry, having served on multiple special committees for the Montgomery County Council as well as serving as a frequent panelist at the annual Montgomery County Symposium on Affordable Housing. Steve has also served as President as well as a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Maryland National Capital Building Industry Association.
Steve received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in History from the University of Illinois.
Director and Owner of Empresas Indumotora SA
Mr. Eduardo Avayú is vice chairman of family owned Empresas Indumotora SA, which represents, wholesales, and distributes automobiles, trucks, and buses in Chile. He was also on the board of Forum Financial Services, owned by the Avayú and Yarur families, that finances automobile sales to retail customers. Forum Financial Services was later acquired in 2015 by Banco BBVA, Spain’s second-largest bank.
Mr. Avayú is active in education through Grupo Cpech, of which he is chairman of the board, manages nonprofit K-12 schools and a technical institute, and offers preparation class for SAT exams to enter higher education.
In addition, Mr. Avayú serves on the board of directors of Fobeju Foundation, that provides scholarships to the Hebrew Academy in Chile. He also held the office of president of the Chilean branch of Keren Hayesod – United Israel Appeal for 11 years and continues his affiliation as a board member of the fundraising organization.
Founder and CIO of One Investments
Peter Testa co-founded One Investments in Switzerland and the Antares European Funds in 1998. The Antares European Funds are European Long/Short Equity Funds following a proprietary research driven bottom-up stock selection process. The Antares fund has been recognized by Eurohedge as the European Long/Short Equity Fund of the Year in 2005 and nominated for the top annual performance award another 5 times.
Prior to founding One Investments, Peter joined London-based Fleming Investment Management Ltd in 1989, ultimately becoming a Director, until his departure in 1998 to found One Investments.
Peter holds a BA in History from Davidson College (1989) and is a qualified Chartered Financial Analyst.
Prior Director of the Transfusion Medicine Division and Professor of Pathology, Medicine, and Oncology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Dr. Ness served as Division Director from 1979 to 2018. From 1983 to 2000 he directed the Baltimore division of American Red Cross Blood Services leading the Baltimore community through the transfusion issues with the AIDS epidemic. At Johns Hopkins he helped to develop programs in patient blood management, bloodless medicine, therapeutic apheresis, and advanced immunohematology. Prior to coming to Hopkins, he was an undergraduate at MIT, a medical student at SUNY Buffalo, a medical resident at Hopkins, a staff associate in the blood program at NIH, and a hematology-transfusion medicine fellow at UC San Francisco.
Dr. Ness was a member of the AABB Board of Directors for many years and became President in 1999. He served as editor of Transfusion from 2003 to 2018. Dr. Ness has written over 250 articles for medical journals and three texts. Dr. Ness also has extensive experience in transfusion related research with emphasis upon transfusion complications including transfusion transmitted infections and immune destruction of transfused cells. He was a member of the FDA Blood Products Advisory Committee and is currently a member of the Health and Human Services Advisory Committee of Blood and Tissue Safety and Availability.
He served as PI for the Johns Hopkins site of the Transfusion Medicine Hemostasis Clinical Trial Network, funded by NHLBI. Dr. Ness was co-PI for a project funded by the NHLBI REDS III program to study donor virus epidemiology and blood utilization issues in China. He has served as a consultant to the coordinating centers of REDS II, REDS III, and REDS IV. He continues to serve as a consultant to many companies involved in transfusion medicine supplies and practices.
Former partner in the corporate finance and M&A practice of Latham & Watkins LLP
Mr. O’Neill recently retired as a partner in the corporate finance and M&A practice of Latham & Watkins LLP in Washington, D.C. He has more than 42 years of experience representing public companies and their boards of directors in strategic and transformative transactions.
Mr. O’Neill has counseled the Hemanext Board since 2005.
General Partner at Forepont, Visiting Professor of Medicine at Oxford University and Adjunct Professor at several universities and medical schools in the US, Australia and the UK
Prior to Forepont, Ismail held several senior executive positions in the pharmaceutical industry. He has published 159 papers in top scientific journals which have been cited over 16,000 times and has led teams that have brought numerous major medicines to the market during his 20-year career in the pharmaceutical industry.
Ismail Kola was until 2018 the CSO of UCB. His previous positions were: Senior Vice President, Discovery Research and Early Clinical Research & Experimental Medicine, Schering-Plough Research Institute, and Chief Scientific Officer, Schering Plough Corporation; Senior Vice President Basic Research and Site Head, Rahway, Montreal and Madrid for Merck and Chairman of Merck’s Antibacterial and Antifungal Worldwide Business Strategy Team; and Vice President Research, and Global Head, Genomics and Biotechnology at Pharmacia Corporation.
Prior to his move to Industry, Ismail was Professor of Human Molecular Genetics, Monash University Medical School, and Director of the Research Center for Functional Genomics and Human Disease for 15 years.
He is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Athersys Inc. (ATHX, Nasdaq) and a Director of GPN vaccines (Australia).
Chief Executive Officer and Board Member of Candela Medical
Geoff Crouse serves as CEO of Candela Medical, one of the world’s largest global medical aesthetic device companies, overseeing the company’s global operations in the US, Europe, China and Japan. He has previously held key executive roles including CEO of Cord Blood Registry and Chief Operating Officer of Immucor, sold to TPG capital valued at over $2B, as well as senior positions at Millipore and Roche Diagnostics.
At Cord Blood Registry, he completed the acquisition of the Company in partnership with GTCR and oversaw its sale in 2015 to AMAG Pharmaceuticals in a transaction valued at over $700M. He also served on the Board of Invitae, supporting its growth from early-stage financing to a successful Initial Public Offering.
Geoff holds a BA in English from Boston College and both an MBA and MPH from the University of California, Berkeley.
Former CEO for Per-Se Technologies, Eclipsys, and Progress Software
Phil Pead is a seasoned technology executive and board member with over 40 years of leadership experience in the Healthcare IT and software industries. He has served as CEO of Per-Se Technologies, Eclipsys, and Progress Software, leading major turnarounds, mergers, and acquisitions. He currently sits on the boards of Modernizing Medicine and WebPT and has held past roles with Change Healthcare and Allscripts.
He has taught the “Managing in Adversity” class at MIT Sloan Business School for four years. He is also a national board member and Secretary for the Posse Foundation.
Executive Director of the G.W. Bush Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS
Joe Grogan is a healthcare expert with over two decades of experience in both the private sector and government, particularly in Washington, DC. He began his career as Executive Director of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS during the George W. Bush administration and later worked at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In the private sector, he advised Wall Street investors and worked for Amgen and Gilead Sciences, where he founded Gilead’s DC office and led federal efforts during three major drug launches.
Joe also served at the Office of Management and Budget as Associate Director of Health Programs, managing over $1.3 trillion in healthcare spending and drafting health sections of three Presidential Budgets. He later served as Domestic Policy Advisor in the West Wing, leading healthcare policy development and contributing to the President’s Covid Task Force.
Joe founded Fire Arrow healthcare consulting group to guide innovators through the complexities of Washington, DC, and help deliver their products to those in need.
Hemanext collaborates with preeminent scientific advisors to ensure preclinical and clinical work meets global state-of-the-art standards.
Biree Andemariam, MD
Director, New England Sickle Cell Institute & Connecticut Bleeding Disorders Center. Associate Professor of Medicine at University of Connecticut. Chief Medical Officer of the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Inc.
Jose Cancelas, MD, PhD
Director of Research, Hoxworth Blood Center at University of Cincinnati. Professor of Pediatrics at University of Cincinnati.
Angelo D’Alessandro, PhD
Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, Director of the Metabolomics Core, Director of Mass Spectrometry, Colorado Cancer Center, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.
Paul M. Ness, MD
Prior Director, Division of Transfusion Medicine and Professor of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Editor of Transfusion, journal of the Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies (AABB) and past president of AABB.
Philip C. Spinella, MD, FCCM
Associate Professor, Pediatrics Division of Critical Care Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine.
Steven Spitalnik, MD
Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology, Vice Chairman, Laboratory Medicine, Columbia University. National Blood Foundation Hall of Fame Inductee.
Ralph Vassallo, MD, FACP
Executive Vice President & Chief Medical and Scientific Officer at Blood Systems, Inc., Scottsdale, AZ.
Mark Yazer, MD
Professor of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh and an Associate Director of UPMC’s Centralized Transfusion Service.
Mike Murphy, MD, FRCP
Professor of Transfusion Medicine, University of Oxford and a Consultant Haematologist for NHS Blood & Transplant (NHSBT) and the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Martin Cannon, the founder and former CEO of Hemanext, Inc., led the company from a small startup into a recognized innovator in red blood cell transfusion technology. Over his tenure, he secured major funding, built a broad patent portfolio, and led the company to achieve marketing authorization by U.S. FDA and CE Mark that positioned Hemanext for commercial launch.
Since retiring in 2023, Martin continues to advise the company’s leadership and supports early-stage ventures and entrepreneurs, drawing on decades of biotech experience.
- Rabcuka J, Blonski S, Meli A, et al. Metabolic reprograming under hypoxic storage preserves faster oxygen unloading from stored red blood cells. Blood Adv. 2022; 6(18):5415-5428. Doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2022007774.
- Karafin MS, Field J, Ilich A, et al. Hypoxic storage of donor red cells preserves deformability after exposure to plasma from adults with sickle cell disease. Transfusion. 2022;1-10. Doi: 10.1111/trf.17163.
- D’Alessandro A, Yoshida T, Nestheide S, et al. Hypoxic storage of red blood cells improves metabolism and post-transfusion recovery. Transfusion. 2020;60(4):786-798.
- Delaporta P, Chatzikalil E, Sykioti M, et al. The ‘αO2-PRBCThal’ trial on the use of Hemanext ONE® for blood transfusion support in thalassemia. Poster presented at: The 20th Annual Sickle Cell & Thalassaemia Conference; October 1-4, 2025; London, United Kingdom. [P033].
- Reikvam H, Felli Lunde T, Kristoffersen E, et al. Safety of hypoxic red blood cell administration in patients with transfusion-dependent hematological malignancies. Oral presentation presented at: The European Hematology Association; June 12-15; Milan, Italy.
- Almeland S, Kristofferson E, Felli Lunde T, et al. First in human safety evaluation of hypoxic red blood cell transfusions to acutely bleeding burn patients. Poster presented at: The 48th Annual Conference on SHOCK; May 31 – June 3, 2025; Boston, MA.
- Reikvam H, Hetland G, Ezligini F, et al. Safety of hypoxic red blood cell administration in patients with transfusion-dependent hematological malignancies: an interim analysis. Transfusion and Apheresis Science. 2023. Doi: 10.1016/j.transci.2023.103755.
* Research Innovation in Scientific Excellence
† AABB’s Standards-Compliant Product Program benefits both vendors and customers by offering assurance that products for the blood community are in compliance with AABB Standards
‡ Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System