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7. Consumer Rights
Please READ THE CONTRACT before choosing a company.
* In the event that the storage company went bankrupt, what would happen to the cord blood samples?
Examples: One of the earliest cord blood banks was Biocyte, founded by the well-known stem cell researcher Hal Broxmeyer, PhD. Unfortunately, they went out of business. Their samples were stored at the Central Blood Bank of Pittsburgh, and that facility agreed to maintain their storage. Since then, Dr. Broxmeyer has served on the Advisory Board of ViaCord. By comparison, when LifeBlood Cryogenics went bankrupt, parents lost their banked cord blood.
In 2001, a company named Bio-Cell opened up in Coral Springs FL. They were actually shipping cord blood to the laboratory of Cryo-Cell in Clearwater FL, but were charging parents twice as much as Cryo-Cell. They went out of business in less than a year, but parents were able to locate their cord blood in the Cryo-Cell storage facility.
In 2002, a company named American Cord Blood Institute opened up in The Woodlands, Texas. They tried to enter the high end of the market, running a very high quality operation; but they could not find enough customers willing to pay their prices and went out of business in less than a year.
In 2003, BirthCells Technology of Eatontown, NJ, closed shop after four years of operations. They were also using the laboratory of Cryo-Cell International in Clearwater, FL. It is possible that they could not maintain a profit margin after Cryo-Cell substantially increased their prices in spring of 2003. Again, storage contracts will be maintained by Cryo-Cell.
