A SINGAPORE biotech firm has set up Vietnam's first stem cell bank, and is working with the Vietnamese government in the country's maiden foray into research in the field.
The $1 million bank, which opens its doors in May, will store blood taken from the newborn's umbilical cord, and stem cells from the outer lining of the umbilical cord, according to officials.
The bank's private arm will store stem cells for paying customers that can be used to treat blood diseases such as leukaemia, for a start. Clients can choose to have tissue collected following childbirth, and store it privately as a form of medical insurance for themselves and, possibly, family members.
The public bank would work in the same way as a blood bank: It will be a storage facility for anyone looking for compatible cells to treat disease. Samples will also be used for research.
The bank's chief scientist, Dr Le Van Dong, said the facility expects to store several hundred samples in its public facility in the first few years, mainly for research. The Ho Chi Minh facility also expects to have 300 private clients in its first year.
Singapore's CordLabs, which provides stem-cell technology to public and private banks around the world, worked with Vietnam's MekoPhar Chemical Pharmaceutical Joint-Stock Company to set up the bank.
MekoPhar is a joint-stock company 40 per cent owned by the state, and the biggest shareholder of An Sinh Hospital, one of the biggest private hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City.
'We chose Vietnam because it is densely populated with huge growth potential,' said Dr Ivor Lim, chief medical director of CellResearch, the parent company of CordLabs.
Existing cord blood banks store umbilical cord blood rich in special cells used to treat blood-related diseases. However, the Vietnamese bank will also harvest stem cells culled from the umbilical cord membrane, which could be used over a wider range of treatments, including bone and organ repair, or to create skin for burn treatment.
The umbilical cord can also yield several hundred times more cells than those taken from traditional sources such as cord blood or bone marrow.
The latest tie-up looks set to give CordLabs a foothold in the lucrative tissue-banking market, worth an estimated US$100 million (S$138 million) in the United States alone.
CellResearch has also signed an agreement with Vietnam's Science and Technology Ministry, which is providing US$1 million to do stem-cell research.
Dr Dong said the government chose to focus on umbilical cord stem cells because of the potential of such work, which is also free of ethical constraints, unlike stem cells taken from embryos.
'These cells can soon be turned into clinical applications for burn, chronic wounds and orthopaedics,' he said.
