Stem Cell Shift Shouldn't Hurt Cord Blood Bank

San Francisco Chronicle
Andrew S. Ross
March 10, 2009

Obama's stem cell move shouldn't hurt cord blood bank

"No layoffs here, that's the headline," says Tom Moore, founder and CEO of Cord Blood Registry in San Bruno. While embryonic stem cells finally got to step out of the shadows on Monday, Moore's 300-person company has been a legal and thriving concern for years. Stored in its Tucson lab are a quarter-million samples of newborns' cord blood, whose stem cells could be helpful in treating crippling medical conditions in family members, from leukemia to juvenile diabetes and brain injury.

Many of the treatments are in their infancy and a number of physicians and medical researchers question cord blood's effectiveness. Still, the company has seen its revenue, primarily from storage fees paid by donating families, grow 40 percent a year, to $110 million in 2008, said Moore. "In the past 14 months, there have been more transplants using our cord blood stem cells than in the previous 14 years," he said. The company is discussing with UCSF and Stanford University a possible research study on using the treatment for hearing loss.

The company may get a further boost this week when Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, introduces legislation establishing a public education campaign aimed at informing interested parents about private cord blood banks, like Cord Blood Registry (www.cordblood.com), and a public bank, the National Cord Blood Inventory, established by law in 2005.

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