LifeCell International, India's first stem cell banking service provider, has announced the launch of umbilical cord tissue banking service in the country.

The technology to harness the potential of umbilical cord tissue, a rich source of mesenchymal stem cells, was developed in-house at the LifeCell R&D centre at Chennai. The company has thus achieved a considerable technology landmark in the field of regenerative science and healthcare industry, a release said here.

Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) from bone marrow have been at the forefront of therapeutic strategies for a number of hitherto incurable ailments like heart disease, type-I diabetes, crohn's disease, GVHD, osteoarthritis and stroke. Further, MSCs from cord tissue showed additional therapeutic potential in animal models to treat parkinsonism, skeletal muscle injury, limb ischemia, retinal nerve degeneration. Hence, these cord tissue MSCs appear to be superior to bone marrow MSCs and can be a potential substitute for them.

Company president and executive director Mayur Abhayal, said in a country like India with over 40 million births every year, the potential is immense for this and there would be a huge opportunity ahead. ``We envision a 30 per cent growth in our enrolments by 2010. Our revenue for this year is expected to close by Rs.400 million," he said.

"Previously, after the collection of the umbilical cord blood, the remaining solid cord tissue was normally discarded. However, this cord tissue is a rich source of Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and we have invested two years of time in developing and validating a proprietary technology at our in-house R&D center for collection and storage of the cord tissue. These MSCs from cord tissue are superior to bone marrow MSCs, as these cells are fetal in nature and therefore more robust. Besides, the collection process is non invasive, painless and usually devoid of infection," said its chief scientific officer Dr Ajit.

Customers who want to store their cord tissue have a range of options with LifeCell. They may choose to bank the processed stem cells from the cord tissue for a ready use or store the cord tissue which can be used to harvest stem cells later for therapy, the officials said.