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NT Bureau
Chennai, Feb 22:
 

Apollo Hospitals Group's executive chairman Prathap Reddy and StemCyte vice-president David Carmel signing an MoU to treat patients in India at a press conference in Chennai yesterday.

        Apollo Hospitals Group and StemCyte Inc have signed a deal to collaborate in pioneering the use of stem cell therapy for treating patients in India.The agreement was signed yesterday at the Apollo Heart Care Centre in Chennai.

        Apollo Hospitals Group's executive chairman Prathap Reddy and StemCyte vice- president David Carmel inked the deal that would help to treat patients in India.

        'This deal aims at making Apollo a centre of excellence in cord blood transplants. Our transplant physicians will be participating in the 5th annual Cord Blood Transplant Symposium, sponsored by StemCyte in Los Angeles. Our physicians will also be undergoing the StemCyte training fellowship programme in Taiwan or USA to further equip themselves in the field of cord blood transplant,' said Reddy.

        'What is a now a wasted resources - with people just disposing of the umbilical cord blood - is actually the hope of a new generation. Before cord blood transplants were done among people who were related. But Apollo was the first in India to do cord blood transplants with unrelated people,' said Carmel.

        'Also in India most public hospitals just throw away the umbilical cord. We would be using them so that the mother and her family and - if the public banking system is in place, other families have a kind of protection shield for the future,' said Reddy.

        Apollo Hospitals Group is as of now importing cord blood units from StemCyte's international registry for its patients, whose tissue matches. But with this deal, Apollo would soon be having its own public cord blood bank.

        On asked whether the mother might not object to her blood being given away to strangers instead of being stored for the benefit of herself or her family in future, Reddy replied that they would first sensitise the mother to how much others would benefit from her blood and then screen her for all diseases and infections before taking this step.

        More than 70 diseases have been successfully treated using these stem cells, including cancers like leukemia, lymphoma and myelomas, blood disorders and immune defiency diseases.

        Carmel said, 'We at StemCyte are excited about collaborating with Apollo in bringing this resource of cord blood to families in India. We are looking forward to jointly developing a world-class cord blood bank, most probably in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad or even in Chennai.'