Smart Cells cord blood storage. Experience?

[kittyonthebeam]

Good morning ladies,

about to have my second baby and trying to decide where to bank the cord blood. As some of you know I am abroad but this company is UK based and offering the taking of stem cells and storage of baby's cord blood at birth. I'm 4 weeks away from my due date so have to make a decision.

Have any of you previously used them? What were your experiences, thoughts?

Any advice appreciated. TIA!

www.smartcells.com/about-smart-cells

thank you very much! wishing you a good rest of pregnancy and easy delivery!

just found out it will cost additional £210 for phlebotomist to collect the blood on the day. Total cost with cells4life with the collection charge and 25 years storage is just under £1800. There are about 5 hospitals in the UK where there is no phlebotomy charge.

Hi. My wife and I have just used SmartCells. The only thing that I can say with any certainty is that they have a good sales team. Saying that, so did snake-oil marketers and so do Nigerian investment scams... These companies charge a fortune for an unproven product. What I've found interesting is that although collection and storage must be licenced by the HTA, there is no industry-standard with regards to storage criteria. This means that the Company decides whether your sample is suitable - and hence whether to charge you for it. The criteria is extremely vague. At Smart Cells one gets an absolute figure for CD34 (stem cells) and total viable cells. With nothing to compare these figures against, there is no way of knowing if the sample is good, bad, or indifferent. So that you may at least compare yours with ours, our figures were around 900,000 and 400,000,000 respectively. Other companies may have very different procedures. As a point of interest, your only interaction (hopefully) with the Company will be the 3rd party phlebotomist, who will need to borrow basic equipment from the hospital, which is a bit awkward considering that the hospital makes no money. I'm unconvinced that this industry is well-controlled enough to warrant the expense. Having said that, we did it.

thank you, johnny! this is a very useful feedback. congratulations on the birth of your child!

johnny1 - congratulations, and many thanks for your feedback. I now know to ask the company specifically what equipment the phlebotomist needs, seems unreasonable that for £210 he/she will need to borrow off the hospital!

Interesting insight johnny.

Some more feedback - I asked our company (cells4life) about the sample criteria for storage. Their response was that as they bank the whole cord, they don't spin off just the stem cells, so they assess the quality of the sample in terms of quantity and viability. They advise a viability of 70% as a minimum (definition available). However, their policy is to call each customer after collection and assessment to discuss the quality and viability with you and then you decide whether to go ahead with storage of the sample. Obviously, if you choose not to for whatever reason, you still incur some costs (I think about £400 all in but need to check that). They also assured that no equipment would need to be borrowed as they send the equipment pack to you so you have everything and can show it to the hospital staff. They also offered to contact the hospital on my behalf and discuss the arrangements with the midwife team and maternity services director.

I have been happy with that response and their attitude.

If anyone else has decided to go with cells4life, PM me as we get a discount for 3 customers approaching the company together. Clearly that's not a good enough reason for your chosing that company, but if you already have then we get £150 rebate each.

I will need to finalise paperwork and payments within 10 days. Good luck to anyone trying to research this and make the decision!

Hi MacMomo, thank you so much for this feedback. It is quite useful. I am due in May and will definitelt PM you if I go with them! Good luck on your delivery!

In case anyone is following this thread, have booked and paid deposit and for phlebotomist with cell4life, who have been helpful (they even sent out the collection kit before I'd paid for the phlebotomist). They were a company already known to my hospital who have checked their documentation in the past and were happy to agree to them coming in.

And again, the phlebotomist (£210) has been excellent so far - called me on a Saturday morning to introduce herself and make sure I had the 3 phone numbers I need (hers, her back-up and the emergency back up line) just in case I go into labour early or go to a different hospital because of the snow. I have now been scheduled for a CS after a scan, and when I texted her with the details she called right back to reassure me she had received them and she will be at the hospital at 0800 on the day, just in case I'm the first into theatre (first op not before 0900). So far, so good.

Just to finish my account of my experience with cells4life.

Due to breech, booked in for ELCS on 31 dec. Phlebotomist arrived before first theatre booking of 0900. Three ECS plus other surgery meant I didn't get done until evening, the lady waited patiently in the nurses station all day, finally did the procedure and took my blood sample at 1930. The courier arrived at 2130. Pleased with the service - on New Years Eve, too.

The company called a few days later to confirm receipt and processing 15 hrs after the birth (they guarantee within 24hrs). Then called again a week later to confirm the viability etc. Within a month, we had the certificate with all details on.

I would also add that I found their customer support excellent throughout all the dealings, they are happy to do it by phone or email and always responded within a few hours.

Hope this helps anyone researching. Happy for you to pm me.

Hi MacMomo, congratulations!! thank you very much for this colour! this is huge help.

Hi All

Lots of things to consider here.

Firstly the decision to store just the stem cells or the whole cord blood? I think that's an easy one...what do public cord blood banks that are involved in transplants do?...they store just the stem cells. As a scientist I know its much cheaper for the bank to just store the whole blood mixed with some cryopreservative and that using this in transplants would cause complications.

The second decision is whether to keep all of the cells for your family, to donate all the cells (if you can and there are only a handful of hospitals that offer donation), or to use Virgin Health Bank's service where you keep some for your family and donate the rest? Virgin's service is substantially cheaper than all the other providers and I know that they have had their cells used in NHS treatments which is a strong indicator of quality.

The third choice is the operational model. Some banks offer to split the stem cells into different sections and store them into different places. Apparently they believe this is safer, well for me its just a marketing gimick if one of my family needed a transplant I would want it to have come from a stem cell unit that had not been split into sections because if there is any variation in the way they have been handled there will be an impact on the transplant unit.

Finally I'd look at the ethics of the organisation i.e. can I trust them?
One bank, Virgin, pledge never to sell to anyone but rather to inform and leave parents to decide and Richard Branson will give profits back to support the growth of these treatments.

Its a matter of personal choice but reading some of the comments above it seems that not all banks tell the whole unvarnished truth in their quest to separate us from our money

A great resource for parents is www.parentsguidecodblood.org...unbiased information which after all is what we all need to make our decisions on.

Naomi

Thanks for this. Personally, I would pass on Virgin as this is a non-core business for the company, given their business model, and would not be surprised to see this business spun off / divested. I have done my research and am now trying to decide between FutureHealth and SmartCells. Both are leaders in this market, but are several years behind American peers. We have stongly considered CBR and Viacord in the USA which are far more advanced and established, however, transportantion logistics and costs make the idea less compelling...

Hi Lilly

If I remember the story correctly at one of the major stem cell conferences in London someone very senior from the NHS was explaining how Branson had been trying to get the government to build a more comprehensive bank and when they wouldn't decided to offer the service himself.

According to the parentsguide the business is also owned by Qatar Foundation a not for profit organisation so my guess is there won't be any changes of ownership as they work to support health, education and social change.

I have to say I would check whether a bank had supplied treatment units ideally in a highly regulated environment like the UK.

best wishes

Naomi

These all very good causes but at the end of the day, it is a numbers game. As a banker, I am sceptical on the viability of the Virgin business model and feel much more comfortable with other more established providers. Besides, they have poor markeing materials and untrained salesforce. These are personal views and personal choices, and I have no intention of influencing anyone's decision. We have considered CryoCell, Cells4Life, Virgin, FurtureHealth, NE CBB, SmartCells, CBR and Viacord. CBR has 10 times more customers than any UK player and in fact more customers than all of UK players combined, and a proven track record of transplants (which is quite scarce in this market), and most advanced technology. They have collected over 40 samples at C&W hospital where I am due to give birth, so the system obviously works. However, I personally feel that so many things could go wrong while transporting the sample to Arizona and am more comfortable with a local storage. Besides, the costs of storing in the USA are much higher. I am having a tough time deciding between SmartCells and FutureHealth. SmartCells seems to have a more modern technology and proximity to London/Heathrow is a plus, however, the company had a major capital expenditure due to building their core lab in 2009, so am thinking about the overall cashflow sustainability... Of course, no financials reports are available for either company since 2009 which makes one pretty much guessing as to where they stand today...

I used Cells4life in Feb 2009 when the weather was dirs (snow etc) and they were faultless. Have just paid for second collection kit for next baby due in 7 weeks and although the procedures have changed I cannot fault them again and they treat every case as unique. Due to my quick delivery times historically they will allocate me a phlebotomist that is situated as close as possible, not the usual criteria of 1 hour away, and a back up also. The first time we visited them near Shoreham/ Brighton to talk it through as were so ignorant of the system and they were excellent at explaining the process and the benefits but there was no pressure to sign up.

We used Virgin for DD's stem cells in 2008 and found them excellent - looks like their prices have dropped since then (happy as DC2 on the way and plan to use them again).

We liked the fact that some of the stem cells are available for others to use, as well as stored in case we ever need them.

The customer service was flawless. We thought that organising the phlebotomist to do the collection was going to be a faff, but actually she did a great job and it all went very smoothly - I was oblivious to the stem cell collection itself.

Has anyone else got their kids' stem cells stored with Cells Unlimited? I've just gone to check my contact details are up to date with them and had a shock - the website is gone, the phone numbers are unobtainable and my emails to them bounce back. I've emailed their parent company in Belgium (Cryo-Save) and am awaiting a reply. The cells were supposed to be stored for 20 years so I'm currently going spare wondering what's happened to them and furious the company didn't let me know they were closing down.

If anyone has any experience of this situation or any advice, it'd be much appreciated.

Great post, lots of interesting input. I am having our 2nd one soon and did do cord banking for the first. Does anyone know how much value there would be in storing for the 2nd baby? Presumably, should we need it for the latter, we could use the stem cells stored the first time round?

**CORRECTION - I MISTYPED. I MEANT 'CELLS LIMITED', NOT UNLIMITED. DAMMIT.