ThermoGenesis Signs Product Development and Supply Assurance Agreement with Cord Blood Registry™
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ThermoGenesis Corp. has noted that GE Healthcare and Cord Blood Registry (CBR) have announced a multi-year contract to supply CBR with ThermoGenesis' AutoXpress™ cord blood processing system and disposables.
In conjunction with this agreement, the Company signed a Product Development and Supply Assurance Agreement with CBR which assures the supply of AutoXpress products for a 15-year period.
This agreement also initiates the development of an advanced cord blood stem cell container, which will also be exclusively distributed through GEHC.
The AutoXpress System automates the isolation and capture of stem cells from umbilical cord blood in a functionally closed system.
ThermoGenesis anticipates that in the first year of these agreements, the sales to CBR will generate in excess of $4 million in disposable revenue for the Company, subject to developing CBR demand and quality requirements.
Subject to other performance conditions, the Company's long term supply assurance contract over the life of our patents calls for anticipated baseline minimum disposable revenue to the Company in excess of $50 million.
"CBR is committed to providing our clients with the highest quality processing and storage of their child's new born stem cells, and we are continuously investigating new technologies to improve the effectiveness with which these precious stem cells are harvested from the collected umbilical cord blood," said Tom Moore, CBR's Chief Executive Officer.
"After rigorous testing at our facility, we have determined that ThermoGenesis' automated AutoXpress System when combined with our proprietary collection technology, consistently recovers a median of 99% of the stem cell-rich mononuclear cell (MNC) population from units of collected cord blood."
"This is a remarkable accomplishment and a significant improvement over the 75 ~ 90% recoveries practiced by many public and family cord blood banks and reported in peer-review journal reports."
"The agreement between GEHC and CBR and our long term supply commitment to CBR is an important milestone for the company," ThermoGenesis' CEO, Philip Coelho said.
"In June 2006 the New York Blood Center's National Cord Blood Program, the pioneering and largest public cord blood bank, became the first to adopt the AutoXpress System."
"Now, both the largest private and public cord blood banks in the world have committed to using ThermoGenesis' AutoXpress System to automate processing of cord blood stem cells."
"There are more than 70 public and 100 private cord blood banks worldwide. We anticipate other cord blood banks may follow these two industry leaders, making our products the industry standard and accelerating ThermoGenesis' transition from a technology platform developer to a market-driven commercial business."
