Vita 34 AG is the pioneer of stem cell banking in Europe. In the future, the company is working on opening up new Business areas in addition to its core business of umbilical cord blood banking and thus developing into the European market leader in cell banking. To achieve this strategic goal and the associated growth, the Management Board has identified the following four core areas:
New Research and Development Areas
Through targeted research and development of marketoriented products and services, Vita 34 continues to develop from a pure stem cell bank to a more broadly based cell bank that can supply the best available patient’s own cells for current and future cell therapies. Vita 34 pursues a clearly focused innovation strategy by developing new products and services around the cryopreservation of stem cells from perinatal tissue or other suitable cell sources. To this end, the Company cooperates with selected renowned Research institutes and universities and, by storing different cell material, creates quality standards for later medical use. In this way, Vita 34 opens up the potential to benefit from the increasing demand for cryopreserved cell material for personalized use in the field of regenerative medicine or cell therapies in the future. In addition, the value chain is to be expanded to include products and services for the pharmaceutical industry or governmental organizations. Currently, the cryopreservation of immune cells from peripheral blood is being prepared. Vita 34 has successfully initiated in vitro studies for its cell Isolation process and the immune cells derived from it in 2020, which are expected to be completed by 2022.
In all research & development activities, projects are selected on an economically reasonable scale, in line with market trends and with an adequate risk profile in the partnerships. In Addition to the current core business, Vita 34 continuously evaluates the need for new products for regenerative medicine (storage of adipose tissue as the starting point for mesenchymal stem cells and adipocytes) and for cell therapies (storage of T cells, natural killer (NK) cells, dendritic cells). The aim is to participate in the progress of further developments in the field of regenerative stem cell medicine and various immunoncological cell therapies in the medium and long term.
Expansion of the Core Business
Vita 34 traditionally focuses on organic growth as part of its corporate strategy. In recent years, the company has successfully pushed ahead with internationalization, as the current storage of umbilical cord blood from more than 20 countries proves. The company keeps on working on continuously increasing the market penetration in the highmargin core market DACH. At the same time, its market presence domestically and abroad is to be stabilized and expanded overall. For this purpose, Vita 34 has a broad product portfolio in the field of storage of umbilical cord blood and umbilical cord tissue. The aim is to continuously expand the product range for stem cell deposits through active Portfolio and life cycle management.
Inorganic Growth
A further focus of the growth strategy is on vertical and horizontal acquisitions in Europe, which should strategically strengthen the market position according to clearly defined parameters and open up additional synergies, particularly in the areas of marketing and sales as well as production and administration. The vertical portfolio expansion strategy involves opportunistic acquisitions along the value chain or of companies with complementary product offerings. The horizontal market expansion strategy focuses on the selective entry into specific European markets.
Ongoing Cost Efficiency
Vita 34 continuously reviews all activities for their contribution to the current and future profitability of the Group. In order to secure future profitable growth on a sustainable basis, the Management Board will continue to examine further
opportunities to increase cost efficiency.