See they were on the right track in 2005. Identified a huge market and a need to match. But somehow, went in another direction. Again, from 2005. Imagine 12 years later where we would be?
There are presently between 40,000 to 50,000 bone marrow transplants performed annually worldwide. Approximately 18,000 of these bone marrow transplants are performed in the United States and approximately 25,000 are performed in Europe. We have not taken steps to determine the number of bone marrow transplants
performed elsewhere. Of the 40,000 to 50,000 bone marrow transplants performed, only 5,000 are performed on babies and children. Furthermore, most of these 40,000 to 50,000 bone marrow transplants are allogeneic transplants, requiring patients to locate donors with compatible hematopoietic stem cells. Based on the fact that only one in three patients actually finds a compatible donor, we estimate that the number of potential bone marrow transplants should exceed 150,000 annually. Based on these statistics, we believe that the existing methods of transplanting human bone marrow have not been perfected and are far from reaching an ideal level of success.
Presently, the standard bone marrow transplant procedure costs approximately $100,000 per patient. This translates into approximately $5 billion annually that patients and their medical insurers around the world are spending currently for this procedure alone. In addition, to manage the risk of incompatibility between donor and patient stem cells, a separation procedure of the stem cells is frequently also performed at a cost of $70,000. We believe that 15% to 20%, or 15,000 to 20,000 of the patients require this stem cell separation procedure as well, adding a further $700 million to the current spending on bone marrow transplants in the United States. Combining these figures with similar expenditures in Europe and Asia, we estimate the current worldwide spending on bone marrow transplants to exceed $7 billion per year.
We estimate that there are more than 50 cord blood banks in the world, most of them located in the United States. In 2001, they collected cryo-preserved (frozen) and stored cord blood from some 34,000 to 36,000 donors and they project that the annual rate of growth of cord blood preserved will be over 15%. Due to the increased use of umbilical cord blood hematopoietic stem cells in bone marrow transplants, we expect that the number of cord blood banks will also grow significantly around the world. We also expect that, in developed countries, in the near future, umbilical cord blood may be drawn at the time of every birth and stored for later use. We believe that the stem cell expansion technology that we will make available through our PluriX™ Bioreactor system, together with proper marketing efforts, will increase the number of umbilical cord blood donors for personal use, i.e., parents storing the umbilical cord blood for their children's future, by increasing the existing growth rate. This will also provide a full base of hematopoietic stem cells donor opportunities to patients throughout the world. We project that the global market for the provision of stem cell expansion services can reach approximately $4 billion.
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But we have given the competition 12 freaking years to catch up.
AI
