Usha Sharma – Mumbai
Chennai-based accredited stem cell banking company LifeCell is expanding its stem cell banking storage centre located in Gurgaon with a total investment of Rs 20 crores. With the expanded centre it aims to have a capacity of 4 lakhs units. The company is targeting to finish expansion related work in the next six months while the expanded centre should be available for operation in less than a year .
Giving the rationale for the expansion Mayur Abhaya, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, LifeCell said, “Today competition is everywhere and with our commitment to offer services which are affordable, we recently expanded our Chennai based centre. There is still scope for future expansion. Moving ahead, now we have planned to expand our other centre located at Gurgaon. We had invested Rs 5 crores and built a capacity of 65,000 units for the same facility in its phase I. After completion of the expansion plans, the same facility will have a storage capacity of 4 lakh units. At present our Chennai facility has a capacity of 80,000 units.”
While responding on the possibility of a public private partnership (PPP) model, Abhaya revealed, “Yes we are considering PPP model. We are in talks with the Haryana state government for PPP model and our talks are presently in the early stages. It will take another year to get conceptualised and reflected on paper. We have also approached the Tamil Nadu government because this state government has already sanctioned Rs 9 crores to another stem cell banking company for creating 3000 units and assured us that we could be an additional service provider for the Tamil Nadu government.”
He also stressed that the company had plans for adopting such a PPP model in other states as well. “We will first approach those states which have less maternal mortality rates. Initially, we are considering states like Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat for the PPP model.”
The company has launched a more affordable platform for preserving umbilical cord blood stem cells for Rs 19,999 with an annual maintenance fee of Rs 3,500 per year. It has offered an easy monthly installments (EMIs) scheme as well and is emphasising more on creating awareness of the benefits of umbilical cord blood stem storage for the future.
According to a press release from the company, it has been used for over 25 years for more than 30,000 successful transplants world over. Umbilical cord has been the number one source of stem cells for treatment of children in the US and Japan and umbilical cord banking is regarded as an essential service globally. In 2005, there were less than 25 stem cell banks worldwide, but in 2013, there are approximately 500 banks globally with one bank in almost every major country.
Laws have been enacted in the US to create awareness on cord blood banking, and financial aid is provided in countries like Singapore. India lags behind world indicators significantly with extremely low public cord blood units and lack of bone marrow donors. Therefore, there is a dire need to address both awareness and affordability to increase adoption of stem cell banking. Abaya indicated that LifeCell was planning to invest from the company’s earning on creating awareness and promotional activities.