Last week, we got an interesting call from an expectant mother who was researching cord blood banks, trying to decide who should store her baby’s umbilical cord stem cells. Her primary question for NECBB was “Why is your pricing more aggressive than other banks?” We thought we should share those reasons with you.
We opened our cryogenics lab in 1971. When our cord blood division was founded in 1997, we had the infrastructure in place to add the processing and cryopreservation of stem cells. No new lab to set up, no storage facility to be built. Plus, since our laboratory and cryogenic storage are in the same building, we avoid the additional cost of shipping units across the country to be processed and stored in different facilities.
NECBB is a privately owned cord blood bank. Our founder made affordability part of the company’s mission. The goal was to make this potentially life-saving opportunity available to everyone across the entire economic spectrum.
At NECBB quality is key. Our processing and storage methodologies are designed to meet or exceed FDA regulations and we are AABB accredited.
(Recently, two of our competitors have been bought and sold and are now owned by venture capitalists. Others are parts of conglomerates or pharmaceutical companies. They have to cover overhead, layers of corporate executives, hordes of salespeople and expensive marketing programs. As companies take on mounting debt, they may become more accountable to boards, investors and stockholders than they are to their clients. These factors contribute to their higher prices.)
At NECBB we manage to get by without owning a corporate jet.
NECBB has the distinct financial advantage of being owned and operated by the same family since inception. We do not have layers of management, no big annual meeting and no corporate jet. We are not a sales-only operation. The industry has become saturated with companies with slick marketing techniques but no lab or storage. Their high-priced ad campaigns create a financial burden that is compounded by the fact that they have to pay a third party lab to process specimens and then they incur the costs of having to buy storage space. These cord blood marketers need to make a profit and so do the vendors they outsource to. Avoiding these costs helps us maintain our commitment to affordability.
NECBB is the expert in stem cell processing and cryopreservation. Our clients are not transferable assets; they are caring people investing in their family’s future health.
The woman who called last week …..She is now an NECBB client.
