Cordlife clients receive refund offer for storage incident

The private blood bank has offered affected clients with free storage.

A significant number of clients with cord blood units stored in one of Cordlife's tanks exposed to suboptimal storage temperatures (Tank A) have accepted the refund offer of annual fees from the year of the incident.

The health ministry has earlier deemed cord blood units in Tank A unsuitable for stem cell transplants.

The company will also store cord blood units for these clients free of charge until their service agreements expire when their children turn 21.

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Cordlife will also strive to find a replacement for units found to be unsuitable for transplant due to viability issues.

Cordlife has also extended the same offer to affected clients with units stored in Tank 6 and the dry shipper and will be reaching out to these clients with the next steps in due course.

The health ministry said units in Tank 6 and a dry shipper were at high risk due to temperature fluctuations.

Meanwhile,  Cordlife announced plans to hire more laboratory and technical staff as part of its strategic plan for FY24, following lapses in its cord blood storage processes.