Cordlife granted 14-day extension to respond on possible suspension

Private cord blood bank Cordlife has been granted a 14-day extension for it to respond to the Ministry of Health (MOH) on its possible suspension.

- Yap Wei Qiang Correspondent

Cordlife Group announced in an Oct 13 bourse filing that it had applied to MOH on Oct 6 for an extension, and the ministry informed it on Oct 12 that the extension had been granted. It now has until Oct 27 to submit its written representations to the ministry.

Cordlife also revealed that since Sept 30, one day after receiving MOH’s Notice of Intent, it has voluntarily stopped the collection, testing, processing and/or storage of any new cord blood units (CBUs).

Cordlife was issued the Notice of Intent after significant lapses were found during MOH’s audit in July.

The company first received a six-month suspension in November 2023 after audit checks found lapses in its storage of CBUs.

It was eventually allowed to resume operations in a calibrated manner from Sept 15, 2024, after MOH was satisfied with the steps it took to address critical shortcomings.

Its licence was also renewed for one year from Jan 14, with a planned midpoint audit by MOH. Such licences are usually renewed for a period of two years.

However, the midpoint audit in July found that Cordlife had failed to keep to various regulatory requirements, including governance, incident reporting and management, as well as processes for collection, testing and processing of new CBUs.