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ViaCell Commends New York State on Recent Umbilical Cord Blood Legislation
News source: Business Wire
Aug 9 2007 - ViaCell, Inc. (Nasdaq: VIAC) applauds New York State on the recent enactment of its Umbilical Cord Blood Bill. Under the legislation, the New York State Department of Health will develop a program to inform the public of the potential medical benefits of cord blood preservation. New York is one of the first states to mandate education on umbilical cord blood.
ViaCell offers families the ability to preserve umbilical cord blood for potential future medical use through its ViaCord(R) product offering. To date, ViaCord has preserved over 130,000 newborn's umbilical cord blood. In June 2007, ViaCell announced that it and Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI), its partner in the area of directed transplants, achieved their combined 100th related umbilical cord blood transplant addressing multiple diseases. Additional information about ViaCord is available online at http://www.viacord.com.
"The current and emerging value of cord blood is enormous and we strongly support expanding universal education to expecting families about the benefits of cord blood. We believe all expecting families deserve to be informed of the medical value of cord blood so that they can make an educated decision about whether or not to store their newborn child's umbilical cord blood for their family," stated Marc D. Beer, President and Chief Executive Officer of ViaCell. "We believe New York is ahead of the curve with their recent legislation and we commend their efforts."
About Umbilical Cord Blood
Umbilical cord blood is a valuable, non-controversial source of stem cells with proven therapeutic effect in treating over 40 diseases. These diseases include cancers such as Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) and Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, certain bone marrow failure syndromes such as severe aplastic anemia and Diamond Blackfan anemia, certain blood disorders such as sickle cell anemia, thalassemia and other genetic disorders. Over 8,000 cord blood transplants have been performed worldwide. Studies have shown that umbilical cord blood transplants from a family member, rather than from a non-relative, have a significantly higher survival rate than transplants from an unrelated donor.
About ViaCell
ViaCell, Inc. is a biotechnology company dedicated to enabling the widespread application of human cells as medicine. The Company markets ViaCord(R), a product offering through which families can preserve their baby's umbilical cord blood at the time of birth for possible future medical use in treating over 40 diseases including certain blood cancers and genetic diseases. ViaCell also conducts research and development primarily to investigate other potential therapeutic uses of umbilical cord blood-derived stem cells and on technology for expanding populations of these cells. ViaCell's pipeline is focused in the areas of cancer, cardiac disease, diabetes and fertility. Additional information about ViaCell is available online at http://www.viacellinc.com.
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