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AmStem Controls the Largest Cord Blood Bank in the World
AmStem owns 90% of Histostem’s assets, including the world’s largest public, fully accredited Cord Blood Bank. This state-of-the-art facility houses more than 80,000 CBUs (cord blood units), and according to the World Marrow Donor Association, it is more than twice as large as the nearest competitor.¹
This massive Cord Blood Bank serves the needs of public health with allogeneic, HLA-typed CBUs made available to researchers and private physicians. Stem cells can be extracted on demand using Histostem’s proprietary methods, which were recently awarded a U.S. Patent. Histostem controls over 90% of the public cord blood banking market in Korea, and also owns many domestic patents in this area.
There is also a private section of the Cord Blood Bank, where mothers can store cord blood for possible future use by their baby. These produce what is called autologous stem cells, which are intended for the use of the donor or blood relatives. Histostem is one of many companies in Korea and around the world that are providing this service to individual donors.
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Sources of Revenue
AmStem and Histostem are filling a great need with the ready availability of high-quality CBUs for public use. Recent articles point to “a lack of suitable donors.”² The U.S. National Cord Blood Inventory was established in 2006, and is in great need of “diverse specimens” to treat leukemia and other diseases.³
By leveraging the regulatory experience of AmStem’s Management Team, the integration of Histostem’s vast repository of accredited cord blood specimens with the U.S. National Cord Blood Inventory will be a top priority. This will provide a source of revenue similar to that already experienced earlier in 2009, when Histostem was awarded a contract to supply stem cells to 2 major Chinese hospitals in Hong Kong.²
As events and technological advances warrant, AmStem is also prepared to expand its private cord blood banking enterprise to meet the needs of the U.S. and European private blood bank market.
State of the Art Facility
In 2008, David Stark, President and CEO of AmStem International, personally toured the Histostem facilities. Mr. Stark is a trained regulatory auditor with over 16 years experience in examining laboratories and medical facilities. In his words,
“This was one of the most impressive facilities I have ever seen.”
The facility covers two entire floors of a building, and is staffed by highly trained technicians. As Mr. Stark reported,
“The lab assistants are all Ph.D. level. This is extraordinary, and prohibitively expensive to staff this way in the U.S.”
The conclusions of the audit were spectacular. As Mr. Stark pointed out,
“I wish I could find this level of organization every time I perform an audit… To be honest, this is better than I often see here in the U.S. when I monitor (sadly enough).”
References
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Cord Blood Bank
