On the path from birth to maturity, reaching one’s 18th birthday is a very significant milestone. It’s an important achievement that validates, among many things, the training, development and experience necessary to take on life’s challenges. 

This year, CBR officially marks our 18th anniversary.  Not only were we the first family bank to store newborn stem cells for future use, but we continue to be the global leader and innovator in cord blood banking.

Our success is driven by a philosophy of continuous improvement built on a foundation of unparalleled industry experience.  And experience matters, especially in an industry like ours that represents a rapidly evolving area of science and technology. 

Today, the operations in CBR’s state-of-the-art, 80,000 square foot laboratory facility – the largest in the world – are governed by hundreds of written standard operating procedures (SOPs).  As the industry pioneer, we didn’t have a roadmap or a manual we could copy.  We wrote the book – literally.

Over time, other banks have followed us.  Some are still in business, but others are not.  Some are just beginning to learn the complexity of running their own laboratory.  The process of preserving newborn stem cells from cord blood is delicate and complex.  It takes experience to do it well, and at CBR we do it very well.  In fact, CBR’s proprietary collection and processing technologies enable us to have the highest cell recovery rate in the industry, so we are able to preserve more stem cells for medical use than any other family bank.  And, after 18 years, we’ve successfully processed the cord blood of more than 300,000 newborns. 

In this blog, we talk a lot about why newborn stem cells from the umbilical cord are unique.  It’s also important to understand what makes CBR unique.  Experience matters.