It will be allowed to collect, test, process and/or store no more than 30 units of new cord blood per month from Sep 15 to Jan 13, 2025
CORDLIFE has accepted a notice from the Ministry of Health (MOH) regarding changes to its cord-blood banking service licence, in a bid to resume its cord-blood banking service.
The embattled cord-blood bank will not collect, test, process and/or store more than 30 units per month of new cord blood from infant donors from Sep 15 to Jan 13, 2025, unless sooner approved by the director-general of health, it said on Friday (Sep 6).
MOH on Aug 29 said the cord-blood bank will be allowed to resume cord-blood banking services “in a controlled manner” from Sep 15.
But to safeguard the interests of customers, it will not be allowed to collect, test, process and/or store more than 30 units of new cord blood each month from Sep 15 to Jan 13, 2025.
While MOH’s notice was pending Cordlife’s written representations, the company said on Friday that it will not be submitting them.
Cordlife was told to stop the collection, testing, processing and/or storage of new cord blood for a period of six months from Dec 15, 2023.
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This came after MOH said seven of Cordlife’s 22 tanks had been exposed to temperatures above acceptable limits at different periods from November 2020.
After six months, the suspension was extended by an additional three months on Jun 15 for Cordlife to complete the validation of its new cord-blood processing method.
Follow-up audits by MOH showed that Cordlife had met the essential requirements to resume its provision of cord-blood banking services, the ministry said in August.
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