Attended the launch of Cordlife the other day the UP Ayala Technohub in Quezon City. It’s the Philippines’ first cord blood processing and cryopreservation facility, where clients can have their baby’s umbilical cordblood containing stem cells stored for later use. Cord blood stem cells can help treat more than 80 diseases such as lymphoma and leukemia. Amazing.

CordLife was established in May 2001 as the first private cord blood bank in Singapore and among the first in Asia. CordLife collects, processes and stores cord blood stem cells, which may later become potential source material for life-saving treatments.

Headquartered in Singapore, CordLife owns the largest network of private cord blood banks with facilities in Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, China and the latest facility in the Philippines. It also has marketing offices in Macau and Thailand. CordLife is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange under the symbol, CBB.

As of December 2009, over 25,000 families have entrusted their baby’s cord blood stem cells with CordLife Group.

In the CordLife laboratory at the UP-Ayala Technohub, they can house up to 20,000 cord blood samples. Here the laboratory technician prepares the cord blood for processing.

Cord blood can be collected from the umbilical cord which is usually thrown away following the delivery of the baby. It does not interfere with or obstruct the birthing procedure, and pose no risk to mother or child.

The blood bag is CordLife’s preferred method of cord blood collection, as this method has been proven to provide a simple and straight forward system, while drastically reducing the chance of contamination.

A CordLife qualified representative will retrieve the child’s collected cord blood after birth for processing and cryopreservation at CordLife’s facility

The first transplant using umbilical cord blood was in 1998 for a boy with Fanconi’s Anemia. Since then, approximately 14,000 cord blood transplants have been performed for over 80 different diseases. These transplants are done for the same indications as bone marrow transplants, however with cord blood as an alternative source of stem cells.

The processed cord blood passes through the pass box, directly into the cryopreservation laboratory for freezing down and preservation. The laboratory is equipped with controlled rate freezers that freeze the cord blood unit down gradually, preventing any damage.

The temperature for cryopreservation is kept at below -165°C. The tanks are directly attached to liquid nitrogen supply tanks that automatically top-up liquid nitrogen as needed.

Today there are over 160 private cord blood banks worldwide that cryogenically preserve newborn babies’ cord blood stem cells for parents in case the need arises in the future.

CordLife Medical Philippines, Inc.: Unit 101, Building H, U.P.-AyalaLand Technohub, Commonwealth Ave, Diliman, Quezon City, 1101 Philippines