HemaStem Therapeutics

HemaStem Therapeutics

INTERNET: www.hemastem.com

PHONE: 800-203-7349; or Email info@hemastem.com

OFFICE: Main office located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

STORAGE: Alternate labs for Canada & USA: USA lab is Community Blood Services, Paramus, NJ; Canada lab is Stem Sciences Inc. in North York, Ontario.

Accreditation: USA lab: AABB; Canada lab: none

COMMENT: HemaStem, aka HemaLife, are privately owned. HemaStem is owned by Geneticas Life Sciences, Inc., a company specializing in biological insurance: they have divisions which bank the genes of endangered species, clone domestic animals, have a registry of human gene donors for the creation of designer babies, and bank the Stem Cells in Cord Blood. Website is in English and Spanish.

SERVICES & DISCOUNT OPTIONS:

• HemaStem provides their patented StemGuard [TM] collection kit.
• The USA Cord Blood laboratory at Community Blood Services handles all private Cord Blood units the same way, but each bank which stores at their lab has a separate freezer.
• The transplant quota is from the public bank at Community Blood Services.
• The Community Blood Services processing method (as of 1 Sept 2007) is the Sepax system from the Swiss company Biosafe.
• Sepax is an automated cell separation system which relies on a laser beam to sense the density gradient between different cell layers after the blood has been spun in a centrifuge. The bag kit is sterile, functionally closed, and single-use. Because the anti-coagulant is already in the bag, the bag carries BLA licensure from the FDA.
• Enrollment fee only charged once per family. Price includes shipping by courier service.
• First year storage included in processing fees.
• Discount for prepaid storage.

ADDITIONAL information: HemaStem Therapeutics was founded in 2004 as a subsidiary of Geneticas Life Sciences, which provided a patented StemGuard [TM] collection kit. Genetics Life Sciences specialized in biological insurance: they had divisions which bank ed the genes of endangered species, cloned domestic animals, had a registry of human gene donors for the creation of designer babies, and banked the Stem Cells in cord blood. Geneticas Life Sciences originally entered the cord blood market in 2003 with the autologous bank GeneAngel, which had a unique pricing concept: No processing fee, but a storage fee of $49.95 was charged every month indefinitely. In exchange for the on-going storage fee, GeneAngel offered parents health insurance: $100,000 if their child developed a disease treatable by cord blood transplant. Perhaps not surprisingly, they could not find customers willing to pay $10,789.20 over 18 years against the odds of one child developing a transplantable disease. Hence, they reorganized and in 2004 launched HemaStem/Hemalife. Genetics Life Sciences also had a subsidiary Allerca, devoted to the creation of hypoallergenic cats. In late 2004 a vicious lawsuit erupted between Transgenic Pets LLC versus Allerca and Geneticas. Apparently the parent company Geneticas has since been disbanded.

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