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Giving America a Healthy Future
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010Early diagnostics reduce healthcare costs; improve quality of life
Recently, PerkinElmer CEO Robert Friel was interviewed on FOX Business News to discuss the state of the nation’s healthcare—and how the global life sciences company is doing its part to ensure a healthier future for all. The parent company of ViaCord, PerkinElmer designs and delivers advanced technology solutions that address the world’s most critical health and safety concerns. For example, PerkinElmer is the leading worldwide provider of neonatal screening systems that have helped identify more than 100,000 newborns at risk of inherited metabolic disorders.
In the FOX interview, Mr. Friel stressed the importance of early diagnostics in keeping health care costs down and improving quality of life. For instance, by opting into newborn screening programs for early detection of health threats, parents may be able to help their child receive therapeutic intervention earlier, leading to a more successful outcome. There is often a positive financial outcome as well—early awareness and intervention can help families avoid costly procedures further down the line and improve quality of life, which also reduces costs for employers, insurers…
Categories: Did You Hear?, Trends in Healthcare
A ‘maybe one day’ turns into a chance for Katie
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010“I keep thinking, what if I knew about the Duke University clinical study and we hadn’t saved Katie’s cord blood— we would not even have had this chance. She has a chance,” Katie’s mom Amy says. Her husband Paul chimes in, “If this helps Katie—it’s huge.”
Amy and Paul are talking about their daughter Katie—a sweet, loving, social and affectionate four year old with a hearty laugh, infectious smile and lots of curiosity. Katie was born with a condition called hypotonia — low muscle tone that affects both her gross and fine motor skills. As a result, Katie can’t walk independently, she never had the coordination to crawl (although she’s quite the scooter!) and she was not physically able to sit until she was 16 months old—almost a year later than typical child development. Katie’s speech is also affected—she is currently saying a few words but working hard with therapists to learn to pronounce different letter sounds.
Rewind a handful of years when Amy and Paul were expecting. Amy got an email from her cousin. “Have you considered banking cord blood?” her cousin…
Categories: Emerging Treatments, Stories of Hope
More Stem Cells Means a Better Rate of Transplant Success
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
You may have heard the saying “more is better.” Maybe it’s not a steadfast rule, but it certainly applies to cord blood stem cell therapy. The more stem cells a doctor has access to, the better the chances he or she can provide a successful treatment for the patient. This is true for both allogenic transplants (when stem cells are provided by a relative or donor) and autologous transplants (when stem cells come from the patient’s own body).
That’s why ViaCord uses the only Heparin-free FDA-approved cord blood collection bag designed to maximize collection. In other words, it allows ViaCord to provide doctors with more stem cells per unit, increasing the chances of successful treatment should a medical need ever arise.
ViaCord recently coathored an abstract, presented at the American Society of Hematology that demonstrates ViaCord’s collection method, which uses liquid CPD, results in significantly more viable cells than units collected with dry heparin (the method used by other cord blood collection companies).1
Categories: Did You Hear?
2009 Recap: another great year for medical advances using cord blood!
Friday, March 5th, 2010
In the past 12 months, cord blood once again made many medical advances. Today, the list of diseases that can be treated with cord blood includes over 80 diseases. If you are a parent who has stored cord blood stem cells for your child(ren) or are considering storing cord blood in the future, there is even more exciting news. This past year gave rise to a significant amount of research into cord blood stem cells as a regenerative therapy, positioning it as a possible viable treatment for a variety of autoimmune, neurological, and metabolic disorders, diseases and injuries.
As a result, the number of cord blood units released by ViaCord for medical application grew significantly. By year end, more than 175 units total had been released. Of the 43 units released in 2009, 74% of them were used to treat patients participating in clinical research.
A recent news report from an ABC news affiliate highlighted some of the recent medical advancements being made using cord blood as a regenerative therapy.
Categories: Emerging Treatments, Trends in Healthcare