Stem Cell bank launched in Pune

Pune, Oct 9: LifeCell, the pioneers in stem cell banking&research in India, today announced the launch of it's marketing and collection centre for umbilical cord blood stem cell banking at an investment of Rs 14 crore, here in Pune.

Pune will be their 17th centre in India, and the company plans to expand it's network of marketing and collection centers to 31 cities, by March 2007.

Addressing a press conference here, the vice-chairman of LifeCell, Mr S Abhaya Kumar, said ''Cord blood, which is discarded after child birth is a rich source of stem cells, which can be harvested and cryo-preserved. These stem cells have the potential to cure more than 75 serious ailments. LifeCell has been spreading the message of preserving this important biological material for the respective family's own use.'' ''LifeCell is setting-up India's First Exclusive Stem Cell Transplant Centre in collaboration with Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute in Chennai. With this initiative, we will be the only company to offer storage to solutions for cord blood stem cell in the country. We are also planning to bring in clinical trials (on stem cell based therapies) and manufacturing partnership to the country '' Mr. Abhaya Kumar informed.

Launched in November 2004, LifeCell is India's first family cord blood bank to bring the revolutionary medical breakthrough of umbilical cord stem cell banking to the country. LifeCell has a technology tie-up with CRYO-CELL International (CCI) USA, which is the pioneer in the field of cord blood banking and the world's biggest cord blood bank.

LifeCell offers its services for a fixed and transparent price. The cost includes Enrolment fee of Rs. 5000, Processing fee: Rs. 27,000 and Annual storage fee: Rs. 3,500 for 21 years.

Vice President (Marketing) of LifeCell, Prasad Mangipudi said, ''Wherever we have launched, LifeCell has been received extremely well both by the medical fraternity and expectant parents. Today, we have close to 4000 enrolments and 3800 samples processed and stored at our banking facility. We are India's first and only stem cell banking company to be awarded ISO 9001:2000 Certification, within 6 months of launching the banking facility near Chennai.'' LifeCell's 21,000 square feet state-of-the-art Stem Cell Processing and Banking facility conforms to the standards of American Association of Blood Banks and US FDA. The facility has a capacity to store over 1 lakh samples and the technical team has been trained by CRYO-CELL International.

UNI