By Bonnie James
Deputy News Editor
Virgin Health Bank, the cord blood bank with its global headquarters at Qatar Science & Technology Park, has announced a ground-breaking UK partnership with Cambridge University Hospitals.
The multifaceted collaboration will benefit patients in the UK - with diseases such as leukaemia, lymphoma and sickle-cell anaemia - by providing better access to potentially life-saving stem cell therapy.
VHB is to collaborate with CUH on a range of initiatives which will improve the availability of cord blood banking and stem cell therapies for both current and future patients.
The agreement is the first of its kind between a private cord blood bank and a National Health Service Foundation Trust.
Cord blood is the blood that remains in the umbilical cord after a baby has been born. It is a rich source of stem cells which, once collected and processed, can be used in therapies.
VHB chief executive Dr Rajan Jethwa said that the agreement was of immense importance within the context of the UK healthcare economy.
“It is a testament to the vision of both Cambridge University Hospitals and Virgin Health Bank, who together have created an innovative partnership which will benefit patients and, most importantly, the development and availability of stem cell units for transplantation in the UK and worldwide,” he explained.
The UK’s National Health Service has already used stem cells from Virgin Health Bank in a successful transplant for a child with sickle-cell anaemia.
“That child is now cured and we hope that, through this partnership, we will be able to contribute to improving the quality of life for patients and saving more lives in the future,” Dr Jethwa said.
Dr Mike Scott, the scientific lead at CUH, observed that this is a wonderful opportunity which in the future has the potential for wider application to provide therapeutic tissue to replace diseased or damaged tissues in patients with conditions such as diabetes, degenerative neurological disorders and cardiovascular disease.
VHB provides new parents in Qatar and the UK with educational information about cord blood banking, ensuring that they are empowered to make truly informed choices about the options available to them.
Mothers delivering babies at the Rosie Hospital in Cambridge will be able to contract with VHB to have the cord blood of their newborns collected and stored rather than it being discarded as is the current practice.
VHB has already banked hundreds of cord blood units from hospitals in Qatar at its state-of-the-art facility at QSTP.
VHB, owned by Qatar Foundation, the Excalibur Group and the Virgin Group, provides cord blood stem cell banking services to families.
VHB operates in the UK and Qatar, where it has established the first cord blood stem cell bank focused on helping to meet the chronic need for stem cells that exists within the Arab community.
Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson has pledged to reinvest any profits which they make from VHB to further the development of stem cell therapies.
CUH NHS Foundation Trust is one of the UK’s largest and best known NHS trusts. It delivers care to the local community through its hospitals Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie and is a leading national centre for specialist treatment.
CUH is a government-designated comprehensive biomedical research centre and one of only five academic health science centres in the UK.