Cordlife suspended from collecting, testing and storing new cord blood units: MOH

Cord blood banking services Cordlife Group will no longer be allowed to collect, test, process and store new cord blood from Wednesday (Nov 26), said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

Cordlife will only be permitted to maintain the storage of existing cord blood units (CBUs), according to the Notice of Regulatory Action issued by the ministry.

Cordlife will be allowed to perform limited actions in relation to such existing units, such as facilitating the transfer of these existing CBUs to other cord blood banks and disposal of existing CBUs in accordance with its clients' instructions.

This follows MOH's Notice of Intent issued on Sept 29 on the intended suspension of Cordlife's licence and its subsequent written representations to the ministry.

[[nid:723305]]

Cordlife had not adequately addressed the concerns raised during the ministry's mid-point audit this July to continue providing the service in a safe, clinically and ethically appropriate manner.

As such, MOH has decided to proceed with the regulatory action to impose additional licence conditions on Cordlife, which will remain in effect even if its licence is renewed for one year in January.

The conditions will remain in force until it demonstrates the ability to consistently meet the regulatory requirements for cord blood banking services.

[[nid:701940]]

The ministry said: "MOH also maintains the earlier directions to Cordlife, including to replace its current Clinical Governance Officer and review all laboratory records of the approximately 160 CBUs collected since January 2025."

The cord blood banking facility has been marred by issues surrounding storage of its CBUs. It came to light in 2023 when MOH found that 22 storage tanks at Cordlife had been exposed to suboptimal temperatures which damaged around 2,200 CBUs.

Following the audit in July, MOH found that Cordlife had sustained its improved temperature monitoring practices and kept an accurate inventory of CBUs, but failed to comply with regulations in other operational areas including governance, incident reporting and management, as well as processes involving collection, testing and processing of new CBUs collected since January 2025.

The key personnel who contributed to the improvements in 2024 had resigned without a proper handover process, and the Clinical Governance Officer did not provide proper oversight and guidance, leading to the under-reporting of incidents and process failures across the collection, testing and processing of the new CBUs.

"MOH will continue to closely supervise Cordlife's rectification of its various lapses, and will not hesitate to take further regulatory action should further non-compliances be found," the ministry added.

[[nid:671894]]

dana.leong@asiaone.com