Vita 34 AG

More than 237,000 customers from more than 20 countries have already provided for their family’s health with a cell depot at Vita 34. Vita 34 continue to be one of Europe’s leading cell banks for umbilical cord blood. In Germany and the DACH region (DACH: Germany, Austria, Switzerland), Vita 34 are the market leader by a clear margin.

Vita 34 AG is the pioneer of stem cell banking in Europe. In addition to its core business of umbilical cord blood banking, the Company aims to enter new markets in future and thus to become the European market leader in cell banking. The Management Board has identified the following four core building blocks to achieve this strategic objective and the associated growth:

New Research and Development Areas
Through targeted research and development of marketable products and services, Vita 34 is transforming itself from a pure stem cell bank to a more broadly-based cell bank that is able to supply the best available patient’s own cells for current and future cell therapies. For this purpose, Vita 34 is following a clearly focused innovation strategy by developing new products and services based for the cryo-preservation of stem cells or other cell sources in the future. To this end, the Company cooperates with selected renowned research institutions and universities and creates quality standards for later medical use with the storage of various cell materials. In this way, Vita 34 is opening up the potential to benefit in the future from the growing demand for cryo-preserved cell material for personalized use in regenerative medicine or cell therapies. In addition, the value chain is to be expanded by products and services for the pharmaceutical industry or government organizations. Currently, the cryo-preservation of immune cells from peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood is being prepared.

In all research and development activities, projects are selected in a targeted manner to an economically reasonable extent that are oriented to market trends, and have an adequate risk profile in the partnerships. In addition to its current core business, Vita 34 is continuously evaluating the demand for new products in the regenerative medicine sector (storage of adipose tissue as a basis for mesenchymal stem cells and adipocytes) and for cell therapies (storage of T-cells, natural killer (NK) cells, and dendritic cells). The objective is to participate in the progress of further developments in the field of regenerative stem cell medicine and various immuno-oncological 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, internationalization has been successfully driven forward, as the current presence with subsidiaries and sales partners in more than 20 countries clearly demonstrates. In the future, the Company plans to continuously increase market penetration in the high-margin core market of the DACH region. At the same time, the market presence in domestic and foreign markets is to be generally stabilized and expanded. To this end, Vita 34 has a comprehensive product portfolio within the umbilical cord blood and umbilical cord tissue storage sector. The aim is to continuously broaden the product range for stem cell deposits through active portfolio and lifecycle management.

Inorganic Growth
The growth strategy is also focused on vertical and horizontal acquisitions in Europe that strategically strengthen the market position according to clearly defined criteria and provide additional synergy benefits, in particular in marketing and sales as well as in manufacturing and management areas. The vertical portfolio expansion strategy includes opportunistic acquisitions along the value chain or of companies with complementary product ranges. The horizontal market expansion is focused on selective entry into specific European markets.

Increasing Cost Efficiency 
Vita 34 examines all activities on an ongoing basis to assess their contribution to the Group’s current and future profitability. This has already led to significant successes in 2018 with the realignment of research and development and sales activities, and with the restructuring of the Danish subsidiary. In order to maintain the profitable growth on a sustainable basis the Management Board will continue to examine further opportunities to increase cost efficiency.

The name Vita 34 stands for maintaining the highest standards of quality. Vita 34 can only set and maintain these standards through the use of rigorous quality assurance processes. This is also reflected in the many permits and licenses that ensure the Company’s Innovation leadership among umbilical cord blood banks in Europe. For example, Vita 34 is the only private stem cell bank in Germany that, in addition to having a permit for the storage of umbilical cord blood for autologous use, possesses the following:

• approvals and permits from the German Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedical Pharmaceuticals (Paul Ehrlich Institute) for dispensing umbilical cord blood preparations for therapeutic use in hematological/oncological diseases for siblings (family-allogenic uses), and to help third-party recipients (allogenic uses);
• a permit for the collection, processing, cryo-preservation, and storage of umbilical cord tissue in Germany, Austria, Switzerland (collectively referred to as the DACH region), and Luxembourg;
•  a patent from the European Patent Office (EPO) for a disinfection, preparation, cryo-preservation, and cell isolation process for umbilical cord tissue and the cells contained therein. As a result, Vita 34 is currently the only German stem cell bank that is permitted to collect and store both cells and tissue from the umbilical cord of newborns under current legislation;
•  the necessary approvals and permits to offer customers the possibility of storing and dispensing both whole blood and separated blood for medical therapy purposes.

In the first quarter of 2018, Vita 34 received accreditation under the internationally recognized NetCord-FACT Standard (FACT accreditation). The certificate is confirmation that Vita 34’s stem cell bank operation meets the highest quality standards. The criteria used to award the accreditation are developed by doctors from a large number of countries and are stricter than the tough requirements already set by the German authorities.

In addition, application has been made for a permit to collect and process adipose tissue preparations for possible later isolation of adult stem cells.