Placenta blood co SituGen raises $1m

The investors are Office of the Chief Scientist, Rad BioMed Incubator, and umbilical cord blood bank BioCord.

Batya Feldman 19 Oct 06   16:15

Israeli start-up SituGen Ltd. today announced that it raised $1 million from the Office of the Chief Scientist, Rad BioMed Incubator, and umbilical cord company BioCord Ltd.

SituGen’s technology maximizes use of umbilical cord and placental blood after birth. The current uniform method can only implant stem cells from umbilical cord blood into patients of up to 45 kilograms; in other words, in children. When development of SituGen’s method is successfully completed, stem cell implants will also be possible in adults.

A group of companies, of which BioCord is a member, have been involved in the past four years in an R&D project to find a way of overcoming the limitations in umbilical cord blood collection. As part of this project, Situgen has developed a method for collecting double the quantity of blood than at present, independently and without the need for special expertise. The Office of the Chief Scientist is financing this project.

A few months ago, BioCord, which owns a private umbilical blood cord bank, signed a financial cooperation agreement with Rad BioMed, owned by RAD Group, under which Rad BioMed invested in the project and became a partner in SituGen, alongside the Office of the Chief Scientist.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on October 19, 2006