If you have any questions surrounding our services, our advice panel offers a plethora of information and aims to answer any frequently asked questions
It is though, highly likely that your sample will be perfectly safe and useable for a much longer period than this. At Future Health, we think it is more ethical to offer to store your sample for 25 years initially, but of course, we will contact you towards the end of this storage period to offer you the chance to extend it further.
For the storage of umbilical cord blood and tissue, we offer three packages Standard, Premium and Premium + with an interest-free instalment payment. Once you have chosen one of the above packages, you have the free choice of paying in 12/18 or 24 months.
At Future health, we specialise in multiple births and we offer special discounts for twins and triplets. Please call us to obtain a quote.
We welcome back all of our repeat clients with a 15% discount from the standard service price. Please call us for a quote!
When the company first opened its doors in 2002, we had already installed the most technologically-advanced laboratory at our headquarters in Nottingham, the heart of the UK. Being a company based on quality, we ensured that we had the most up-to-date facilities. The following ten years led to a great deal of success for Future Health Biobank, with our international expansion rapidly progressing we built our second biobank in Switzerland. This new addition meant that we could serve our customers quicker whilst offering a location storage choice.
Future Health Group has now processed and stored more than 200,000 stem cell samples from 75 countries around the world.
There have been over 40,000 lifesaving stem cell transplants in the world, for 85 conditions, performed using these stem cells since 1988.
Cord tissue contains cells with marker characteristics consistent with populations shown to have therapeutic value which are currently being used in over 300 clinical trials around the world for regenerative medical purposes and the treatment of life altering conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and cerebral palsy.
Should your child face any of a vast range of health issues in later life, stem cells may be the key to repairing and restoring their health.
Umbilical cord blood stem cells are already being used in the treatment of over 85 medical conditions including leukaemias, anaemias and thalassemias and the list is constantly growing. Cord blood stem cell collection is an incredibly simple process in which these unique cells are collected from the umbilical cord once the baby has been safely delivered.
Umbilical cord tissue cells can be collected at the same time as cord blood stem cells. This process simply involves taking a sample of the cord tissue, then processing it by Future Health laboratory in the UK and storing it in our biobank in Switzerland.
To date over 40,000 cord blood samples have been used in clinical applications all over the world since 1988.
There is also a 25% chance that a cord blood sample belonging to one child will be a match for a sibling though.
It is highly likely that your sample will be perfectly safe and useable for a much longer period than this. At Future Health, we think it is more ethical to offer to store your sample for 25 years initially, but of course, we will contact you towards the end of this storage period to offer you the chance to extend it further.
We can process any sample, though we do set a stringent success criteria based on the number of stem cell within it. The sample must contain a minimum number of CD34+ stem cells in order for us to deem it successful and suitable for long term storage. If your cord blood sample does not meet this requirement, you will have the option to decline storage and we will not charge you anything further.
Your cord blood stem cells could then be used to treat someone else around the world. However, you will no longer have direct access to this precious sample. For more information you can contact HUG in Geneva.
Disorders of blood cell proliferation (Anaemia, platelet abnormalities and more)
Inherited immune system disorders (Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), Neutropenias and more)
Cancers (Leukaemia, Bone Marrow cancer and more)
Inherited Metabolic Disorders (Mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS) Storage Diseases, Leukodystrophy Disorders and more)
Inherited Disorders effecting the Immune System & Other Organs (Cartilage-Hair Hypoplasia, Gunther’s Disease)
Simply contact us on +41 21 948 2 948 or email custcareswiss@fhbb.com and we will send you an information pack and an agreement to complete.
We will then send you a collection kit in which all the information required for the collection will be included.
Once you have ordered your stem cell collection with our customer care team, we will post out a collection kit to your home. This kit needs to be kept safe, away from any radiators and ideally with your overnight maternity bag.
Once you go into labour, simply take the kit to the hospital with you. Once your baby has been safely delivered, the health care professional will extract the cord blood. This is a very quick and non-invasive procedure and won’t interrupt your precious time with your baby. The health care professional will then securely package the stem cells into the provided collection kit.
Then all that is required is that yourself or your partner calls us to arrange collection of the kit. The sample is then delivered directly to our laboratory in Nottingham and will be processed and prepared for storage. Our customer care team will then be in touch will a follow-up call with the results and status of your sample.
When it arrives, just keep it near your maternity bag and take it with you on the big day.
When the big day arrives and you go to the hospital, remember to take your collection kit with you.
Once your baby has been safely delivered, the assigned healthcare professional will collect the cord blood, cord tissue and maternal blood before placing it in the collection kit.
When the healthcare professional returns the sample collection kit, call us on +41 21 948 2 948 between 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday and +41 79 128 59 30 in an emergency to arrange a courier service.
The samples will be processed shortly. It takes between 4 and 6 weeks for the samples to be processed. As soon as we have received your results, we will inform you by phone or by e-mail. After successful storage, we will issue you a storage certificate and send it to your home.
All collection kits are designed to maintain room temperature (do not put them in a fridge or freezer) to keep the sample in optimum condition until it reaches our laboratory. All collection kits include a gel pack which ensures the sample maintains the required temperature during shipping.
Our laboratory is open for processing 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year, ensuring all samples are processed well within our regulatory guidelines, giving clients the best possible results.
During processing, each sample is condensed and split into multiple portions, meaning should you require your child stem cells in the future, only one segment needs to be used, leaving the rest intact for use in future treatments.
Each sample is processed individually by our highly experienced and qualified laboratory technician. We don’t use a fully automated system where multiple samples are processed simultaneously, as processing multiple samples at once could put your sample at risk of contamination.
If you opt for our Premium service, we will store what we call the buffy coat layer (this layer contains all stem cells found in the cord blood). This is likely to contain other types of stem cells like mesenchymal stem cells and VSEL’s which could be of benefit in the future as clinical applications progress with scientific research.
We will NEVER send your samples to be stored by a third party, as we believe this can put your samples at unnecessary risk.
Each sample will be split into multiple portions within our specially designed double-wrapped casing before freezing, enabling your child’s sample to be used several times to treat life-threatening conditions, if required.
All of our storage tanks are individually alarmed and monitored 24/7, 365 days a year.
After arranging the consent papers with you, we will work with your doctor to arrange the safe delivery of your sample to the transplant facility on the given date and time.
We will not charge you for the release of your sample if your family needs it for use in a treatment.
It is therefore standard practice to only collect the stem cells once the third stage of labour has been successfully completed and both you and baby are safe and comfortable.
Whether you opt for a natural delivery or caesarean section, managed or physiological third stage of labour, there should be no problem collecting your baby’s stem cells. For this reason, we do not recommend your birth plan is altered or compromised in any way.
Anything above this may start to impact on the amount of cord blood available, but we would always encourage you to follow your birth plan. We will simply collect what cord blood is available on the day and if after processing, the stem cell count does not meet our minimum storage criteria, you will not be charged anything further.
It is also worth noting, if you opt for a physiological third stage, we are still able to collect the cord tissue.
If you do move, please remember to let us know your new address and contact information so we can keep our records up to date.
