CORDLIFE, the region’s largest medical- service company on cord blood banking, has opened its seventh facility in the country. The $1-million facility at the UP-AyalaLand Technohub in Diliman, Quezon City, is the first entity to locally offer cord blood stem-cell processing through cryopreservation.

“With this new facility, Filipino parents no longer have to risk sending their baby’s cord blood abroad for long-term storage,” said group CEO Steven Fang. “The new CordLife facility in the Philippines is built around world-class standards such as the American Association of Blood Banks and International Organization for Standardization.”

Stem cells are the building blocks of the blood and immune system. They also have the ability to assign themselves into other cells. Stem cells can be collected from the bone marrow, peripheral blood and adipose tissues, but with some clinical risks.

According to the company, cord blood collected from the umbilical cord, which is usually thrown away following an infant’s delivery, is a safer and preferred source of stem cells.

According to CordLife, stem cells from an infant’s cord blood may be used to treat more than 80 diseases, including certain cancers and many other blood-related disorders. Lymphona and leukemia, the top two childhood cancers in the Philippines, are treatable with cord blood, it said.

Fang said other emerging applications of cord-blood treatment include treatment of type 1 diabetes and cerebral palsy in children.

Aside from the individual use of the child, the collected cord-blood stem cells may also be used in treating family members, as “candidate tissue material for life-saving treatments for the same patient and their family,” said Fang.

Cost of cryopreservation is a one-time enrollment and processing fee of P40,000. Maintenance of the cord-blood unit is pegged at P8,000, paid annually. The unit can be called upon by the family whenever it is required.

Filipinos comprise the management and laboratory team of the banking facility, and, said Fang, were trained in Singapore and Australia in processing these stem cells “in accordance with international standards.”

Fang said the next step is to bring cord-blood therapy into the country. “The starting point is proper banking,” he said. “You need to demonstrate that you have the ability and the capacity to store these stem cells.”

According to Fang, research is currently being done by a separate company in the “amplification and multiplication of stem cells.” He said research and development is based in Australia and sponsored by the Australian government and Deakin University in Australia.

He explained that some conditions require the whole cord-blood sample to be used. “That is why we need this technology of multiplying these stem cells.”

CordLife utilizes a fully automated cell-processing system called Sepax, which offers a “sterile and precise approach to cell separation, with cell recovery rate up to 96 percent.” It can operate 365 days a year and has the capacity to store more than cord blood stem cell units.

Cordlife Ltd. is headquartered in Singapore and listed in the Australian Securities Exchange.

In Photo: Steven Fang, group chief executive officer of CordLife Ltd., and Dr. Cherie Daly field questions from journalists at the inauguration of CordLife Medical Philippines Inc. at Techportal, at the UP-Ayala Technohub in Quezon City.   (Nonoy Lacza)