India To Set Up Largest Public Cord Blood Bank

The company plans to spend 25 crore/Rs 250 million for establishing the bank in Chennai in the next five years. At the moment, India has 15 private cord blood stem cell banks. But the need is growing day by day.

This was specially felt in the Nalini Ambady case. Despite searching for a match in the US and India, she could not find anything that could help her.

On the need for an extensive repository, Abhaya said: "Considering the huge ethnic diversity in the country many more units would be required to give patients a reasonable chance of finding a match."

The umbilical cord blood is a rich source of stem cells that have the potential to treat over 80 medical conditions today such as thalassemia (rare blood disorder), leukemia (blood cancer), myeloma (a type of bone marrow cancer), lymphoma (type of blood cancer) and many such critical diseases. Stem cells are regenerative cells that can be transplanted to replace damaged cells in the body.

"The idea is to improve the stem cell asset base in the country to make the benefits available to our people. As of now the umbilical cord blood is wasted post-delivery," he said.

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