Blood Stem Cell Storage Company Sees Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cell and Juvenile Diabetes Research as a Future Tipping Point

67 WALL STREET, New York - July 15, 2009 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Life Science Tools/Medical Laboratories Report report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This 44 page feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs, Equity Analysts and Money Managers. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.

Topics covered: Healthcare Reform - Impact of recession - M&A activity - Regulatory developments - Technology advances - Investor issues - Recommended stocks.

Companies include: Affymetrix, AstraZeneca (AZN), Beckman Coulter (BEC), Bio-Rad Laboratories (BIO), Cardiovascular Systems (CSII), Cepheid (CPHD), Gen-Probe (GPRO), ICU Medical (ICUI), Illumina (ILMN), Immucor (BLUD), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Life Technologies (LIFE), Luminex (LMNX), Mettler Toledo, Millipore (MIL), Myriad Genetics (MYGN), Pfizer (PFE), Qiagen (QGEN), Thermo, Waters, Zoll Medical (ZOLL).

In the following brief excerpt from the 44 page report, Matthew Schissler, founder of Cord Blood America, discusses the outlook for the sector and for investors.

TWST: What about the technology side? What do you guys do?

Mr. Schissler: We privately bank umbilical cord blood stem cells for families. What that means is families pay us to store the stem cells that are a perfect match for the child. The stem cells are harvested from the umbilical cord at the time of birth so they're non-controversial stem cells. The stem cells are then shipped to our cryogenic facility in New Jersey where they're processed and then cryogenically frozen, so if - God forbid - the child comes down with a future disease that can be battled with stem cells, they'll have a perfect match thus they won't have to find a donor or go to a registry and wait for a donor or whatever it may be. They already have their own perfectly matched set of stem cells to be used to battle disease such as cancer and leukemia.

TWST: Are you finding that as people know about stem cell storage, it's becoming much more popular? Has there been a spike in the use of stem cell storage?

Mr. Schissler: It's interesting. From about 2000 to 2005, there was a spike in families starting to store, and from about late 2005 early 2006 till 2009, that spike has leveled off to about somewhere around 4% of all families in the United States who privately bank their stem cells when they have children. It hasn't really grown that much in the last three or four years. Now, what we attribute this to are two things. One, it always tend to be a certain demographic that stores their stem cells, it tends to be the same people that will do anything for their children from private schools to everything else, and because there is no new developments yet that have been commercialized, there is a lot of things in clinical trials, but there is no new stem cell development being commercialized, there has not been another tipping point in the industry. Let me just give you example. At the University of Florida right now, there is a study going on to see if umbilical cord blood stem cells can treat and cure juvenile diabetes. If that does get through trials and end up becoming commercialized, there is a much larger population that has a history of diabetes in the family than they do cancer and leukemia. Now you're going to have a much larger population saying, "Okay, this might be a good idea for us to store stem cells" and we believe that's going to be the next tipping point. I think over the next three to ten years you're going to see many new therapies get to market and as those therapies get to market, those therapies are going to affect more and more families and you're going to start seeing a much higher percentage of family storing their stem cells.

TWST: Looking at therapies for diabetes for example, is it accurate that the more research there is in stem cells, the more knowledge about stem cells, the more people who want to store stem cells?

Mr. Schissler: Yes, I'll tell you there is actually a much larger theme here. The theme is that within the United States, the previous administration didn't ban stem cell research, they said they were not going to fund stem cell research and what this administration is saying is "We're going to provide government funds for embryonic stem cell research." So, what they're doing is they're putting money and it hasn't happened yet, but they intend to put money into research of embryonic stem cells, which allows us to push therapies to market faster. The reason that's a much larger theme is that other countries have been funding embryonic stem cell research for years, and now some of the countries are ahead of us in certain technologies and what does that mean. That means if they get a technology to market faster, they're going to patent it in the United States. Now every time a procedure is done in the United States using stem cells for that particular affliction, that money ends up in patent royalties ends up going overseas. It's a much larger economical question, but United States basically was building a house without a hammer in previous years, now we've been provided all the tools to at least compete with other countries for stem cell therapy.

The Wall Street Transcript is a unique service for investors and industry researchers - providing fresh commentary and insight through verbatim interviews with CEOs and research analysts. This 44 page special issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online .

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