Cerus Corporation is an American multinational biotechnology company headquartered in Concord, California that develops and provides a treatment system to pathogen-reduce human blood products for the healthcare industry.

In the mid-1980s, hematologist Laurence Corash developed a novel method of inactivating HIV particles contained in donated blood plasma using ultraviolet lights.

[1][4][5][6][3][7][8][9] The company's proprietary technology (called Helinx) was conceived by Corash in the mid-1980s as a method to protect patients from HIV-tainted plasma and platelet donations in the growing AIDS epidemic.

These two blood components were found to be suitable to treat in ex-vivo isolation with the company's UV-A light process due to their naturally translucent properties.

[17][10][13][18][19] The Intercept Blood System for Platelets received EU CE MARK Class III certification in 2002, and US FDA pre-market approval on December 18, 2014.