Ahmedabad based StemCyte India Therapeutics, a unit of StemCyte, USA, plans to expand its operations in India by opening new collection centres across the country and build 5,000 plus public inventory of UCB units with focus on more transplants in next 2 to 3 years.
The cord blood market in India is estimated at around US$ 60 million and has great potential for UCB banking due to a high birth rate of 26 million births per year and genetic diversity. The company has released almost 2,000 cord blood units across 235 transplant centres worldwide, including 29 transplants in India. Operating a hybrid model of UCB stem cell banking, StemCyte worldwide has a public inventory of over 35,000 umbilical cord blood units.
According to Kenneth J Giacin, chairman and director, StemCyte, USA, the success of stem cell technology is not just in banking, but in its therapeutic application as well. “Despite the increasing number of births, India lags behind world indicators with extremely low public cord blood units and lack of bone marrow donors. There is a need to spread awareness and its importance to increase adoption of stem cell banking. We are committed towards our Indian operations and aim to build 5,000 plus units of public inventory in India and also to open more collection centres across India,” informed Giacin.
Deepak Chhabra, COO, StemCyte India Therapeutics said that one of the most important aspects in cord blood transplantation is the number of viable stem cells at time of transfusion. Through their patented ‘plasma depletion technology’ they can assure that more than 99.95 per cent of collected nucleated cells are restored during processing. This in turn results in higher probability of successful transplants. UCB transplants plays a major role in treatment of thalassemia patients.
With more than 25 years of human safety and efficacy data, umbilical cord blood stem cells are emerging as a prime source of stem cells for regenerative medicine which repairs injured tissues, nerves and organs. Dr Wise Young, global medical director, StemCyte USA, who has been doing extensive work on spinal cord injuries, stroke, diabetes, etc using umbilical cord blood stem cells, said that research and clinical studies are increasing at an incredible pace and this will result in the treatment of some of the most devastating diseases.
UCB can be used to treat more than 80 types of blood disorders which are approved by Indian regulatory board and US FDA. The company in the US has completed the phase II of their global clinical trial on spinal cord injury and moving forward, India will be one of the centres. It is also exploring the use of UCB stem cells in stroke, HIV, peripheral and optic nerve damage treatments.
The company, a joint venture between StemCyte,USA, Apollo Hospitals and Cadila Pharmaceuticals, commenced its operations in India in 2010 and has stored over 1,000 public umbilical cord blood units till date. It has a wide network of collection centres across Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The storage and processing centre is based out of it’s headquarter in Ahmedabad.