Technology Milestones

Cordlife, Asia Pacific’s largest network of private cord banks has launched the Philippines’ first and only cord blood processing and cyropreservation facility at the UP Ayaland Techno Hub.

“With this new facility, Filipino parents no longer have to risk sending their baby’s cord blood abroad for long-term storage. The new CordLife here is built around world-class standards such as the American Association of Blood Banks and International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

“Our investments to align with these standards are necessary to support stem cell therapies ethically and responsibly,” said Steven Fang, Group chief executive officer of the CordLife Limited.

Cryopreservation includes cord blood collection, procedural fee, cord blood processing, viability test, infectious disease tests and ground transportation of cord blood unit within Metro Manila.

One-time upfront enrollment and processing fee would cost a patient P40,000, exclusive of value added tax. An upkeep fee of P8,000 a year is also a requisite for membership fee.

“If you get the same treatment in other countries, your bill would surely triple or quadruple,” said Samatha Su, deputy director of Services and Biomedical and International Partnership Office, Spring Singapore.

Cord blood comes from a newborn baby’s umbilical cord which is usually thrown away after birth until some scientific discoveries in 1988 made it a major source of stem cells for transplantation worldwide to cure diseases.

Cord blood are made of stem cells which are responsible for replenishing blood and immune system cells with the ability to multiply and develop into other cell types to produce new and healthy cells.

Cord blood stem cells has been used by doctors all over the world for more than 80 diseases, including certain cancers and many other blood-related disorders such as high blood pressure and heart ailments.

In fact, lymphoma and leukemia, both treatable with cord blood are the top two childhood cancers in the Philippines. Leukemia is among the country’s top 10 most common form of cancer for adults.

Other emerging applications with cord blood stem cells under active research include cerebral palsy and Type 1 diabetes.

Cordlife Medical Philippines, Inc. has now formally started operating 365 days a year and has the capacity to store more than 20,000 cord blood stem cell units.

 

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