All I want for Xmas is... my placenta?

by Melissa Hancock - Thursday, 20th September 2007

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Babygros and cuddly toys are so last century. Today, the best present you can give your newborn baby is a £1,500 set of stem cells.

“It might just save a child’s life,” explains Shamshad Ahmed, CEO and founder of Smart Cells, a London-based company that collects umbilical cord blood stem cells that are then frozen in liquid nitrogen and banked for up to 25 years.

Such cells have the potential to treat a host of illnesses in the future.

Wayne Channon, chairman of Brighton-based Cells4Life, is another entrepreneur who believes it is a growing industry and has put serious money into Cells4Life.

This is no industry for the faint-hearted, mind you. Start-up costs are mega. And in how many industries do your employees have to be vetted by the Human Tissue Authority?

And as for technology back-up, "you have to have completely fail-safe systems so the labs can be monitored on a 24/7 basis,” says Channon.

More on this, er, growing industry in the October issue of Real Business magazine. Or watch this space for the next chapter.

Tags: richard branson, wayne channon, human tissue authority, cells4life, stem cells, shamshad ahmed, virgin health bank, smart cells, human tissue, technology in business, growth industry,