Government announces £4m investment in stem cell services to save more lives

The Government has today announced a £4million investment in stem cell services that could save an extra life every month.

The announcement refers to a new collaborative project between Anthony Nolan and NHS Blood and Transplant which will enable us to match stem cell donors to people needing lifesaving transplants more quickly and effectively.

Public Health Minister Anne Milton said: 'This new collaboration between NHS Blood and Transplant and Anthony Nolan is excellent news. We know that the quicker we match potential donors to recipients, the more lives can be saved.

'This extra £4 million will help to save the lives of more people who need bone marrow transplants. I look forward to seeing this project make a real difference to patients.'

Prime Minister David Cameron has also given the announcement his full backing today.

Henny Braund, chief executive of Anthony Nolan, and Lynda Hamlyn, chief executive of NHSBT, have welcomed today’s announcement.

Henny said: 'This money will help us save more lives. For a patient with blood cancer needing a stem cell transplant, the time it takes to find a matching donor is crucial. Anything we can do to reduce that time is really important.

'However, this is just the start of what we want to achieve in the long term and we will be seeking further funding to take this work forward and help many more people in future.'

Here are the main points of the project:

• From this autumn we will be moving towards a single registry which UK transplant centres   can use to access matched donors for patients, managed by Anthony Nolan, as recommended by the Stem Cell Strategic Forum.

• New donors will still be able to register and donate cord blood through both Anthony Nolan and NHS Blood and Transplant.

• Anthony Nolan will be the single point of access for search requests from UK transplant centres for both adult unrelated donors and cord blood units.

•  Anthony Nolan and NHSBT are also typing 20,000 donors to high resolution, and developing a genotype prediction system that will enable us to faster identify matching donors for patients.

•  Anthony Nolan and NHSBT are expanding cord blood collection at the eight existing centres in the UK by boosting capacity so we can collect 24/7. We estimate this will enable us to bank an additional 2000 cord blood units a year.

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