Blood banks join together
Thursday, 19 March, 2009
Two Australian cord blood banks have merged to form a new entity, Australian Stem Cell Healthcare.
The two banks – Biocell, set up by the University of Melbourne’s Associate Professor Mark Kirkland, and Cellsense, established by AusBiotech founder Dr Tony Coulepsis – store umbilical and placental blood for transplant and other therapeutic uses.
The merged entity aims to join the global trend of parents storing their child’s stem cells in case of disease in later life. Storing stem cells is common in the US and Korea and company representatives hope similar moves are growing in Australia.
Both companies are licensed by the TGA to collect and store cord blood and extract stem cells. Customers can ask a representative of the new company or their own doctor to collect the blood from any hospital in Australia after birth.
Cellsense is a subsidiary of listed company Stirling Resources (ASX:SRE). While cord blood and the stem cells collected are the property of donors, a portion of every customer’s fee is donated to assist stem cell research.
Cellsense undertakes stem cell research in partnership with Adelaide’s Women’s and Children’s Health Research Institute, the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science (IMVS) and the University of Adelaide. IMVS haematologist Dr Ian Lewis is Cellsense’s medical director.
The company is working with research groups to explore cell-based therapies against auto-immune disorders like type 1 diabetes and is developing a culture system to generate regulatory T cells (Tregs).
Biocell is a member of the Cordlife (ASX:CBB) group of companies. Cordlife has cord blood banking facilities in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Hong Kong and India.
The merger between the two companies will be achieved through the issue of BioCell shares. Kirkland and Coulepis will sit on the board of the new company and will form the executive management team.
They are in discussions with various universities regarding research into applications for cord blood use in the treatment of an array of diseases.
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