BIRMINGHAM ? Blaze Medical Devices received an investment of $250,000 at the end of 2011 from a group of angel investors that included Great Lakes Angels.

Great Lakes Angels Chairman David Weaver declined to specify how much GLA invested in his company. Weaver is CEO of Blaze Medical Devices, which is developing a line of products for rapid and easy testing of stored blood properties relating to quality loss during storage.

Weaver said the Blaze investment was vetted by a GLA committee of which he was not a part. The investment was made in time to qualify investors for the 25 percent Michigan tax credit for angel investing, which expired on Dec. 31, 2011. Blaze is based in Ann Arbor.

The core of Blaze?s value proposition is in increasing the efficacy and safety of transfusions while reducing transfusion-related costs and reducing the use of blood. Adverse reactions of Red Blood Cells transfusions contribute about $1,300 of the total $2,000 per transfused unit cost, totaling over $17 Billion in additional costs throughout the US healthcare system. Blaze and the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, presented in October some early pre-clinical results with a Scientific Poster at the AABB Transfusion Medicine meeting.

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