The cord blood banking industry is a rapidly evolving industry. Every month there are major events occurring in the sector that shift industry dynamics. Often, these events are announcements of technical or scientific advancements. Sometimes they are announcements of major industry alliances. Occasionally, they are announcements of a new industry competitor, a major milestone, or a significant funding award.
For those of us interested in the cord blood industry, tracking these shifting industry dynamics is of paramount importance. For this reason, this post covers the most significant cord blood industry news events as of February 2015.
Cord Blood News Round-Up for February 2015
1. Plasticell wins Innovate UK funding for £1.6 million cord blood stem cell manufacturing project
“Plasticell has announced that Innovate UK has made a further investment in a therapeutic programme utilising CombiCult®, the high throughput stem cell technology designed to solve bottlenecks in regenerative medicine development
Innovate UK will provide a grant of approximately £1.3 million to a research consortium led by Plasticell for a project entitled ‘Ex-vivo expansion of cord blood and bone marrow stem cells.’ The consortium includes the University of Oxford and the Cell Therapy Catapult.”
2. Cord Blood Registry Announces Formation of Scientific & Medical Advisory Board
“Cord Blood Registry® (CBR®) announces the establishment of a Scientific and Medical Advisory Board (SMAB). Composed of internationally renowned stem cell experts, the SMAB will provide input and guidance to help advance CBR’s mission to expand the scope of newborn stem cell therapies that may be available to patients and their families.
The founding members of the SMAB are Dr. Charles Cox, Dr. Mahendra Rao, Dr. Leslie Silberstein and Dr. Alan Trounson. Dr. Rao will serve as the inaugural chairman of the SMAB, and he will also be acting as CBR’s chief clinical and regulatory advisor.”
3. Cord Blood Registry and China Cord Blood Corporation Enter into Strategic Collaboration
“Cord Blood Registry® (CBR®), the world’s largest newborn stem cell company, and China Cord Blood Corporation (CCBC [NYSE: CO]), China’s first and largest umbilical cord blood bank, today entered into a memorandum of understanding regarding their strategic collaboration in China and the United States. The two prominent cord blood banks will share data on cord blood collection, processing and storage to advance international standards. The companies will also work together under the memorandum, to develop a family disease registry for CCBC’s clients in China and jointly support newborn stem cell-related clinical trials in the U.S. and China…
In the aggregate, the two companies have collected and stored samples from an estimated 1 million newborn children worldwide, accounting for nearly half of all cord blood units preserved globally.”
4. Cord Blood Banking Leader, Cryo-Cell International, Continues to Support the Advancement of Regenerative Medicine
“Cryo-Cell International, Inc. is pleased to announce that it has entered into a cord blood banking research collaboration with the Center for Cardiovascular Research, which is affiliated with the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine in Tampa, Florida. The focus of research at the Center is on the potential use of cord blood stem cells to treat patients who have experienced acute heart attacks and heart failure.
One million Americans experience acute myocardial infarctions, commonly known as a heart attack, each year and of those, approximately 300,000 to 500,000 individuals develop heart failure… Cryo-Cell International has agreed to provide the Center with cord blood collections that have previously been donated to Cryo-Cell International by parents and designated for research use to advance regenerative medicine.”
5. Cord Blood Registry and Cellular Dynamics International Announce Collaboration to Reprogram Newborn Stem Cells into Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
“Cord Blood Registry and Cellular Dynamics International announced today that they have entered into a research collaboration to reprogram newborn stem cells from both umbilical cord blood and umbilical cord tissue collected, processed and cryopreserved under CBR’s protocols into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) using CDI’s proprietary methods.
Through this research collaboration, CBR will provide to CDI multiple de-identified, research-donated, and cryopreserved umbilical cord blood units as well as multiple de-identified units of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) isolated from previously cryopreserved cord tissue. CDI will reprogram the cells into iPSCs and confirm their pluripotent nature.”
Future Cord Blood News Round-Ups
Note that we have been and will continue to cover major case law, patents, clinical trials, grant awards, and scientific advancements in separate posts, so sign-up for our email list below to be alerted as soon as this content is posted.
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BioInformant is the only research firm that has served the cord blood sector since it emerged. Our management team comes from a BioInformatics background – the science of collecting and analyzing complex genetic codes – and applies these techniques to the field of market research. BioInformant has been featured on news outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Nature Biotechnology, Medical Ethics, CBS News, and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).
Serving Fortune 500 leaders that include GE Healthcare, Pfizer, Goldman Sachs, Beckton Dickinson, and Thermo Fisher Scientific, BioInformant is your global leader in cord blood industry data.
To learn more about the cord blood banking industry, view the “Complete 2015-16 Global Cord Blood Banking Industry Report” now.
