Hong Kong-listed Golden Meditech, whose business ranges in developing blood banking products and is one of China’s leading healthcare technology companies announced that it has increased its holdings in Australian-listed Cordlife to 18.9%, which will make the Hong Kong company as the single largest shareholder in one of the most prominent companies offering umbilical cord blood bank services. Golden Meditech intends to fork out a sum as much as HK$12 Million or USD2.4 Million to increase its stake from what it has currently.
According to Mr Kam Yuen, the Chairman of Golden Meditech, Cordlife’s exclusive license to operate cord blood bank services in Indonesia, and as the only foreign provider in India makes it attractive. In addition to these 2 regions, Cordlife also operates services in Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Australia, Thailand, and the Phillipines which makes it South East Asia’s largest umbilical cord blood bank operator.
Mr Kam also added that through raising its strategic ownership of Cordlife, it would not only help to expand the reach of Golden Meditech’s cord blood bank services beyond China, covering some of the most populated areas in Asia Pacific, but also help to improve the success rate of HLA (human leukocyte antigen) within Asia, ultimately benefiting the large number of patients in need of stem cell transplants. He also emphasized that as ongoing developments in India, Indonesia and other Asian regions takes place, increasing the focus on cord blood bank services, Asia could well become the world’s largest market for cord blood bank services.
