Supply & Maintenance of Cord Blood Cell Separation System

Tender description

1.1. Cord Blood Bank (CBB) forms part of the Specialist Services Directorate of NHSBT. The CBB laboratory provides services to support haematopoietic stem cell transplantation including collection, processing and cryopreservation of cord blood derived stem cells. 1.2. Cord blood is rich in blood stem cells, similar to those found in bone marrow, and these can be used to treat many different cancers, immune deficiencies and genetic disorders. For the transplant to be a success, stem cells taken from the cord blood must match the patient's tissue type as closely as possible. 1.3. The recent report from the UK Stem Cell Strategic Forum sets out a strategy to save an additional 200 lives year by increasing the number of umbilical cord blood units banked in the UK. NHSBT currently banks ~2300 units/annum and will continue to do so until an optimal bank size of 30,000 has been reached by 2020. After which banking will continue at a reduced rate. 1.4. The NHS CBB has been performing plasma and red cell depletion of cord blood prior to cryopreservation since 1997 and has utilised a fully automated centrifugation based processing platform since 2003 and requires a functionally closed, sterile, automated separation system.