Octapharma Plasma pauses operations at all sites nationwide

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Octapharma Plasma has closed all of its locations nationwide, including in Southeast Fresno and Clovis, citing network issues as the problem.

The company pays people to donate their plasma to those in need.

Action News spoke to the regional director when the Fresno location opened in April of 2023.

"Every single new donor is going to go through a full physical with one of our nurses that are on staff and a full medical screening," the company's regional director, Matthew Zaggy said.

Plasma, which is in our blood, is used to make medications for rare, chronic conditions and can also be used during medical emergencies.

Octapharma's Clovis location opened in 2019 and Zaggy spoke about its success during an interview with Action News last year.

"They are producing anywhere between 200-220 liters of plasma a day. It being right down the road from the new Fresno location, it's showing a lot of huge potential for the amount of life-saving product we can produce," Zaggy said.

The company provided Action News with a statement about the closure, writing:

"On April 17, we identified unauthorized activity in our network environment, which has disrupted certain parts of our operations. We are taking this matter very seriously. Upon learning of this event, we began conducting an investigation with outside experts to understand the impact. That investigation remains ongoing, and we do not have more to report at this time."

According to its social media accounts, Octapharma Plasma's locations have been closed since Wednesday.

However, regular donor, Alexander Ibarra, says his app has been down for a bit longer.

"It was on Tuesday I looked at my app and then all of a sudden the server had went down so I was just questioning why it went down," Ibarra said.

Action News went to both Central Valley locations to get answers, but the Clovis location had no one inside and neighboring businesses say it has been closed for a couple days.

Meanwhile, an employee at the Southeast Fresno location told us they are closed, but could not provide any further information.

We're told any updates about reopening will be sent over email, on social media, their website or app.

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